Teknics 1/48
XF9F-2/3 Prototype Panther Conversion

Enter the Panther

When Hobbycraft first announced their 1/48 F9F-2 Panther kit a number of years ago, there has been a great deal of anticipation at the prospect of an early Panther for many modelers. Last year, Trumpeter announced that they were also releasing a 1/48 F9F-2 and it turned out that Hobbycraft and Trumpeter jointly developed this nice kit. For a look a the kit out of the box, go here. For a review of building the kit, look here.

While the kit is an easy build, there are a few minor discrepancies in the kit that many Panther fans were concerned about. These include:

• Wing flaps are molded separately, inboard flaps are molded closed
• Leading edge flaps are molded closed
• Tip tanks are too narrow
• Wing fold detail on wings is not provided
• Fighter nose profile is slender
• Recce nose window is wrong size and in wrong position on the F9F-2P

Count on Teknics and Meteor Productions to help the AMS modeler to build a more accurate early Panther. They've produced a number of interesting detail sets to enhance or even alter the basic Hobbycraft/Trumpeter kits.

In this release, Teknics has produced some beautifully cast replacement parts which provide:

• New outer wings that retain the kit's trailing edge flap well and rivet patterns
• Outer wings now have details at the wing fold
• Tip tanks are removed with early wing tips in their place
• Early design of horizontal stabilizer
• Unperforated speed brakes
• Three different lengths of pitot test booms

So what does this set get you? With this set, you can replicate any of the early flight test Panthers as seen in the Ginter books. In addition, the first Blue Angel Panthers were out of the early (and I mean EARLY) production blocks of the F9F-2, so you'll see photos of the Blue Angel Panthers without wingtip tanks, with the wings folded in the vertical position (pre-tip-tank position) and with solid speed boards. If you want the corrected tanks and wing fold detail with the flaps deployed, Teknics has that set available as well (reviewed here). Teknics has also released replacement wings with tip tanks and the leading edge flaps up (reviewed here). Since the wings are literally drop-in replacements for kit parts, there is no surgery required to use this set other than carefully removing the parts from their molding stubs.

Conclusions

This set will definitely create an eye-catching cat spotted on your scale carrier deck and is a very simple conversion to either the Hobbycraft or Trumpeter F9F-2/3 or F9F-2P kits.

Definitely recommended!

My sincere thanks to Meteor Productions for this review sample!