Description
The stubby Buffalo fighter, designed and built in the late 1930s by the American Brewster Aeronautical Corporation, was one of the first U.S. Navy’s monoplane aircraft destined for carrier-borne operations. It was a single-seat, all-metal mid-wing monoplane with fabric-covered control surfaces and a retractable undercarriage.
The F2A-2 was the second variant, replacing the A-1 on the production line in the spring of 1940. Powered by a Wright R-1820 Cyclone radial engine, it was equipped with cuffed Curtiss Electric propeller, large spinner and four machine guns of the same calibre – two in the nose and one in each wing.
Forty-three aircraft were ordered by the Navy, while another eight F2A-1s were modified to A-2 standard. Belgium ordered 40 Brewster B-339B aircraft, a de-navalised F2A-2s with a longer tail, but in the event, none of these planes reached the destination country. The Model B-339D was originally built for the Netherlands East Indies; following its surrender a handful of aircraft were transferred to the U.S. 5th Air Force in Australia and then lent to the RAAF.
Colour schemes included in the kit:
1) Brewster F2A-2, BuNo 1412, Black/White 2-F-7, VF-2, US Navy, USS Lexington, spring 1941
2) Brewster F2A-2 Buffalo, BuNo 1431, White 24, US Naval Air Training Command, US Navy, NAS Miami, Florida, U.S.A., summer 1942
3) Brewster B-339D (Buffalo), White 3120/Yellow 7 (ex-Dutch B3-120), 5th Air Force, US Army Air Forces, Australia, autumn 1942
4) Brewster B-339B (built for the Belgian Air Force), White NX56B, Brewster Aeronautical Corporation, Newark Airport, New Jersey, U.S.A., April 1940
Assembly instructions:
