The F6F Hellcat kit from Guillow’s is the third kit I’ve built from them. This kit has been the best and easiest to build of the three. The balsa wood was good quality and did not break when removing parts from the sheets or during assembly. Builders of this kit will need to pay special attention to the fuselage tail area and the placement of the 1/16 square sticks above and below the horizontal stabilizer. Guillow’s provides a detailed drawing of the area just for the placement of these sticks. The F6F from the kit is the -3 variant and can be painted with Navy blue-grey or the tri-color dark sea blue, Intermediate blue, Insignia white or can be built as a -5 variant leaving off the small windows behind the cockpit and painting it dark sea blue. Anyone 10 years old or older will have no problems with this kit. I highly recommend this Guillow’s kit.

First off, let me say I built three of these, but only for display. I can't impart any flying info. This is a really easy build and the parts fit together very well, though I did get distracted a bit with cutting the fuselage formers and ribs to facilitate the fitting of the stringers. I guess that would be my only complaint. Excellent decals and tissue. I cut the canopies in half so as to slide the rear piece back for an open cockpit. It's a nice kit if you're not into lots of details. Guillow has the larger model of this plane if that's what you're looking for. This is just a nice plane for what I needed it for which was to make a diorama of the movie Flying Leathernecks.

I usually build plastic models, but these can be a nice change every once in a while. The kit supplies you with everything you need, except for the glue. As far as putting the wood together, that's pretty easy. Getting the plastic pieces off their sheet can be tricky. The kit comes with tissue paper to go over the plane so it can be flown outside. In my opinion, the planes look just as good without the tissue as they do with. The best tools to have are a sharp knife, lots of sand paper, and Elmer's glue