+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background
A review by the Australian Government's Defense Committee held after World War II recommended that the post-war forces of the RAN be structured around a Task Force incorporating multiple aircraft carriers. Initial plans were for three carriers, with two active and a third in reserve. A Fleet Air Arm was established on 3 July 1947 by the Commonwealth Defense Council to operate aircraft from these. The first, HMAS Sydney, entered service in 1948.
Sydney was the only non-US, non-UK aircraft carrier to be involved in the Korean War. Sydney's maiden voyage saw the delivery of the first two squadrons operated by the Fleet Air Arm: 805 Squadron with Hawker Sea Furies, and 816 Squadron with Fairey Fireflies. The RAN's second aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne, had encountered delays while upgrading to the latest technology, and the British aircraft carrier HMS Vengeance was loaned to the RAN from 1952 until 1955, when Melbourne was commissioned.
At this stage it was clear that the RAN needed some more aerial punch for its new carriers beyond its fast Sea Furies and outdated Fireflies. Hence, search began for a complementary fighter bomber. The Douglas A-1 Skyraider was an initial candidate, but it finally was rejected because it appeared to be too slow and limited to the CAS role. The Westland Wyvern was another candidate, but considered to be too complex and large. Despite the advent of the jet age, a rather simple and robust aircraft with a piston engine was demanded as a ground-attack version for low altitudes. In early 1949, a proven candidate was found: Vought's F4U-5 Corsair, even though in a much modified version.
The Corsair was quickly adopted, since time was pressing. But despite the urgency through the Commonwealth Defense Council, the RAN Corsair would considerably differ from its American counterparts: The RAN decided to replace the original Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engine with a Rolls Royce Griffon engine. A major change, but the Griffon offered better fuel efficiency and saved overall weight, despite the prominent water radiator bath under the propeller.
The longer nose section earned the Australian Corsairs the nickname ‘Longneck’, inspired by typical 750ml bottles of beer in South Australia. These aircraft could also be easily identified through a massive, four-bladed contraprop with a long, pointed spinner. Major benefit of the contraprop was a much improved low speed handling through reduced torque effects and enhanced throttle response - a vital feature on the relatively small Australian carriers' flight decks. This new arrangement changed the Corsair's silhouette completely, but also improved aerodynamics, so that, despite a nominal decrease in power, almost all performance features could be kept.
Other obvious external modifications were an enlarged fin with a square shape for better directional stability at low speeds and the introduction of an almost frameless perspex bubble canopy - reminiscent of Goodyear's F2G "Super Corsair" from late WWII and improving both aerodynamics as well as the rearward field of view. Less visible were many British standard equipment pieces, like the Hispano Mk. V cannons, the radio or the electric system. Effectively, almost no part of the Australian Corsairs would be interchangeable with its US cousins!
The aircraft were to be assembled in Australia at the Port Melbourne plant of CAC. Raw airframe kits were imported from the USA via ship, as well as the Australian Corsairs' engines, which came directly from Great Britain. A total of 34 ‘Longnecks’ were built from these imported kits. The new aircraft were ready for service in October 1950 and received the official designation ‘Corsair S.1’, All machines were exclusively allocated to 806 Squadron, which was initially based on HMAS Sydney.
RAN Corsairs quickly saw hot action, when HMAS Sydney was deployed to Korean waters in late 1951, with a wartime CAG of 805, 806, 808, and 817 Squadrons embarked. The CAG conducted its first raids on 5 October 1951 with 32 sorties mounted in the 'Wales' area in the south-west of North Korea. Six days later, Sydney's CAG flew a light fleet carrier record to date of 89 sorties in one day conducting attacking raids and targeting sorties for USS New Jersey. The Fleet Air Arm operated in a strike, ground support, and escort role during the deployment, which saw three RAN pilots killed and a fourth seriously wounded, while a total of fifteen aircraft were lost, including two Corsair S.1.
After just three years of service, starting in 1953 towards the end of the Korea crisis, all RAN Corsairs saw a major equipment update, including an AN/APS-4 radar which was added in a housing under the starboard wing. This simple radar could be used for radar navigation, radar beacon homing and radar bombing, as well as airborne target search, so that the Corsairs could even be employed as night fighters. The modified machines were re-designated SAW.1 ("Strike - All Weather").
All RAN Corsairs served exclusively with 806 Squadron alongside Hawker Sea Furies and later De Havilland See Venom all-weather fighters. After the Korean War the squadron was quickly relocated to HMAS Melbourne when HMAS Sydney was to be decommissioned in the late 50ies. The robust machines were withdrawn from carrier use in 1965 but remained in land-based service at Nowra Air Station until 1968, when the squadron was disbanded and the last machines retired. They were effectively replaced by A-4 Skyhawks.
General characteristics
• Crew: 1 pilot
• Length: 37 ft (11.09 m)
• Wingspan: 41 ft 0 in (12.5 m)
• Height: 17 ft 1 1/2 in (5.11 m)
• Empty weight: 9,205 lb (4,174 kg)
• Loaded weight: 14,670 lb (6,653 kg)
Powerplant:
• 1 × water-cooled V12 Rolls Royce Griffon RG.25.SM engine with 2.625 hp (1.955 kW)
Performance
• Maximum speed: 426 mph (350 kn, 688 km/h)
• Range: 900 mi (783 nmi, 1,450 km)
• Service ceiling: 41.500ft (12.649 m)
• Rate of climb: 3,870ft/min (19.7 m/s)
Armament:
4 × 20 mm (.79 in) Hispano Mk V cannons
4.000 pounds (1.800 kg) of external ordnance, including drop tanks, iron bombs of up to 1.000 lbs. calibre or up to 16× 3" (76.2 mm) rockets
The kit and its assembly:
Another whiffy 'science fiction' model. I found the idea of an après-WWII-Corsair in Commonwealth use interesting, since the type had a very long and successful career, and the 2012 “Aussierama” group build at whatifmodelers.com fuelled this project further.
Neither a RAN Corsair ever existed, nor a V12 engine variant, though. My initial idea was a Corsair with a Centaurus engine and a five-bladed propeller. But this is a rather common whif conversion, you find a lot of these – easy to do and it looks great, too. But I wanted "something more".
An early concept element was the bubble canopy with the lowered rear fuselage, but the Griffon entered the scene relatively late, just when I found a resin conversion set from Red Roo Models of Australia with RAAF Avro Lincoln engine nacelles. That engine would make the difference I had been looking for – and it was furthermore a nice ‘excuse’ for fitting a massive contraprop… ;)
The basis kit for this conversion is a French F4U-7 from Italeri. It is a very good kit which is still around in several permutations and re-boxings, e .g. from Revell o. G.. Wings, horizontal stabilizers and landing gear were taken OOB, but the fuselage saw heavy modification:
a) The resin Griffon from Red Roo was implanted just in front of the wing's leading edge. The fuselage was simply cut off and the former exhaust niches filled with putty. Easier than expected, even though tedious and time-consuming!
The Red Roo engines come without any props, so that the propeller is a donation part: it comes from a vintage Plasticart Tu-20/95 bomber in 1:100 scale. The blade tips were clipped for a modern look, matching the diameter of the original F4U propeller. Ground clearance would not be a problem, since the propeller sits higher on the fuselage than with the original radial engine.
b) The original round fin was completely replaced by a new horizontal stabilizer. This piece is the outer section of a vintage 1:100 scale An-12(!), also from Plasticart. As a side note: this donation part is probably 35 years old, but here it finally found a new and good use! It is a simple but very effective change – with the new fin the converted Corsair now looks a little like a Blackburn Firebrand or later Firecrest?
c) The complete upper fuselage was replaced by a lower, scratch-built/hand-welded polystyrene piece. It received a new cockpit opening and a scratch-built fairing for the new bubble canopy. The latter comes from a Hasegawa Vought XF5U-1 (the 'Flying Pancake') and makes the Corsair look pretty fast and streamlined. A pilot (Italeri?) was added to the cockpit, which was otherwise kept OOB since it is nicely detailed, just like the rest of the OOB kit.
I guess that only 50% of the original fuselage survived this major surgery! A wonder that the thing still holds together...
Further minor mods include the radar housing (leftover from another Italeri F4U kit), new guns in the wings and the unguided 3" missiles with launch rails instead of USN HVARs. They add IMHO much to the British look of the aircraft. The RPs come from a Matchbox Bristol Beaufighter, the racks, too, but the original, massive four-missile-pallets were separated into single launch rails, for a more delicate look.
The drop tank comes from the original kit, even though its centerline position is individual. The bomb hardpoints under the wing roots were retained, but left empty. You can IMHO easily ‘kill’ a whif plane with too much and/or too exotic ordnance, and there's already enough extra about this model to discover.
Painting and markings:
To make the plane a bit exotic (and for the aforementioned group build) I decided to build it in Australian Navy colors, with Kangaroo Roundels. Initially I wanted to place the RAN Corsair into the Korean War era, but at that time the Kangaroo roundels had not been in use yet (they were introduced in July 1956, after the war). On the downside of that time window, quick ID "invasion stripes" from the Korean War era would not be plausible anymore - and they'd only go together with RAF-style roundels, which I did not want to use since I wanted a clear identification of the Corsair's (fictional) user. Therefore, the model was placed in the late 50ies.
I kept the Corsair in typical RAN colors of that era, though. Sea Furies and Gannets were benchmarks, not only for the paint scheme but also for the markings/decals. Basic colors are Extra Dark Sea Grey (Humbrol 123) from above and Sky Type S (Testors 2049) from below, with a high waterline and with EDSG wrapped around the leading edges – a detail I copied from RAN Gannets.
As a little design twist I tried to make some areas look as if Korean War ID stripes on wings and fuselage had recently been painted over - and approprtaiet detail for 1957, and just after the RAAF/RAN introduced the Kangaroo Roundels. Therefore, upper sides of wings and fuselage were painted with Testors 2079 (RLM 66) and Humbrol 90 (Beige Green, actually Sky Type S, too, but with a kore yellow-ish hue than the Testors paint). I think it worked well, and makes the simple two-tone livery a bit more attractive?
Cockpit interior was painted in RAF Cockpit Green (Humbrol 78), the landing gear as well as its wells were left in aluminum (Humbrol 56).
The kit was only slightly weathered, with a very thin black ink wash, some dry painting with lighter shades of the basic tones in order to emphasize panel lines, and even less dry painting with silver on leading edges.
Additionally, some light exhaust and gun soot stains were added, simple dry painting with matt black and some dark grey.
The decals were puzzled together from several Xtracedal aftermarket sheets (for Fairey Gannets and Hawker Sea Furys) and the scrap box. In order to add a colorful contrast I decided to add some bold squadron colors on fin and spinner, since I have seen similar markings on RAN Gannets of that time. I went for black and yellow, as complementary colors to the red/white/blue roundels. The checkered rudder was cut from an aftermarket sheet for small-scale tabletop vehicles. The spinner was painted by hand.
Finally, everything was sealed under stain varnish (Tamiya), and a slightly sprayed some matt varnish onto the upper front areas, so that the paint looks a bit dull and worn without sacrificing the sheen look.
All in all, a major conversion with little problems – waiting for the resin parts from Australia to arrive was the biggest challenge. I think that the aircraft looks pretty plausible? A subtle whif. ^^
