| Type |
Fighter |
| Carousel 1 item
no. |
6181 |
| Production run |
unlimited |
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Photographs
Copyright © Collin Riley 2005-2010
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| F4F-4
(Wildcat), VMF-121, Henderson Field, Guadalcanal, October 1942, Capt.
Joe FOSS, Medal of Honor, 26 Victories |
Rotundity
set to diecast, and beautifully executed for all that. The F4F is
continually maligned as inferior to Japanese types, and even inferred
to be outdated for its time. In my oh-so humble opinion, the Japanese
A6M has been somewhat overrated, while the F4F has been somewhat underrated
in turn.
A spiel.
Because Japanese pilots valued maneuverability over just about any
other quality in their aircraft, and because Japanese aircraft engines
were not up to international power standards, the designers of the
Zero were forced to make their design as light as possible. To do
this, they left out a lot of the robustness that US aircraft of the
time included in the basic structure. Self-sealing fuel tanks are
a case in point, though heavier framing and thicker skinning were
two other qualities often ignored. Because of the extra strength of
US planes, they were able to absorb more damage, and were capable
of performing a wider range of duties, such as dive bombing and ground
support. (As an aside, to save weight, the Zero was built with a monocoque
(unibody) structure that made its manufacture more difficult and time
consuming.) Note also that the Martlet (the Wildcat by another name)
was much prized by Royal Navy pilots for its maneuverability in the
European and Mediterranean theaters.
And lastly, when a Zero was finally captured during the Battle of
Midway, testing in the US showed that at speeds over about 300 mph
the stick on the A6M required the strength of a sumo wrestler to move,
and Allied pilots were warned to keep battle speeds up above 300 mph
to restrict the Zeros ability to maneuver.
Read on.
No one can go wrong in a good winter read (or summer read if south
of the Equator) than a history of the Pacific war, especially those
early nose to nose battles around the Coral Sea and Rabaul. There
was much more to those early battles than the aircraft involved, one
of those factors being the tactics that were developed, another being
the bravery and resourcefulness of the pilots on both sides. It was
a most interesting time. |
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