Airscale 1/24 F6F Hellcat Instrument Panel Upgrade First Look

By Michael Benolkin

First Look

Airscale has been producing a wide range of instrument panel enhancement sets including instrument faces, placards, bezels, etc., for WWI, WWII, and modern subjects. In addition, they periodically turn out sets tailored to a specific kit subject, and this is one of those sets. This set replicates the instrument panel and side consoles for the F6F Hellcat, just in time for Airfix's 1/24 F6F-5 Hellcat release.

This set includes a set of photo-etched parts and a sheet of decals to replicate the instruments and placards around the cockpit interior. You can see in Airscale's image below how nice this set looks even before the photo-etched parts and underlying kit parts are painted. The only thing to note here is that this set is accurate for the F6F-3, which has the instruments surface-mounted to the panel while the F6F-5 has its instruments recessed deeper into the panel to offset glare from the sun. Airfix's part E44 provides that detail and while it does fit and align with the Airscale panel, the holes for the instruments are too small and will require some careful modifications to overlay this panel and accurately render the F6F-5 panel. The good news for me is that I'm backdating the Airfix kit to an F6F-3, so this set is great for my project.

This is another nice release from Airscale and with a 1/24 scale cockpit, this set will bring your huge Hellcat to life.

You can order this set at HobbyZone USA.

My sincere thanks to Airscale for this review sample!