Lockheed T2V-1 Sea Star

by Fotios Rouch

AJ-2 Savage

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There is a Sea Star at the Pima Air&Space museum. I have taken photographs of it, especially to compare it with the T-33. It is surprising how many differences there are. From the nose cross section to the hump behind the canopy, the intakes, etc. there is really oo much work to convert a T-33 and get a accurate Sea Star. Fortunately, there is a beautiful T2V-1 kit from Collect-Aire that captures all the differences very nicely.

The Collect-Aire Sea Star is done by my favorite model masterer.

Everything he has done for Collect-Aire so far ranges from very good to splendid. I will never get tired of saying that his Skywarrior is one of the best resin kits I have laid eyes on. Of course the resin US resin caster has a lot to do with it as well. I am certainly looking forward to his Destroyer (B-66). I have seen pictures of the master and it looks great.

But back to the Sea Star.

This kit, like all of the kits coming from this maker, is very much like an injection kit. The fuselage has thin cast walls and the surface detail is very fine and delicate. The cockpit has a decent amount of detail but I chose to add some more by using Reheat's photoetched accessories. The seats are quite nice and I added only belts.

The only other thing I had to modify on this kit was the air brakes. They represent an earlier design and not the ones on the version I wanted to depict. They just need some careful drilling and ribbing added.

The vacuum formed canopy was clear but it took me a while to figure out how to cut it properly so it would make a perfect fit with its metal frame. I used the kit decals and they went down well. An extra set of two numbers going under the wings were missing but I replaced them from my other Sea Star kit which will be done in the Gray scheme and will not need them.

Overall, a very convincing effort by Collect-Aire. It was a kit that went together reasonably fast (for a resin kit). After you put it next to a Shooting Star you will realize how different design requirements can have a plane take two completely different evolutionary paths. Bravo to Collect-Aire and DM.
 

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Model, Images and Article Copyright © 2001 by Fotios Rouch
Page Created 16 December 2001
Last updated 04 June 2007

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