Siga’s 1/72
North American
FJ-1 Fury

By Chris Banyai-Riepl

History

With the jet engine becoming the hot topic of choice in the mid-1940s, North American submitted several design studies for a carrier-borne jet fighter to the US Navy. One of these was selected for construction, and the XFJ-1 took to the air in 1946. Powered by an Allison J35 turbojet capable of putting out 4,000lbs of thrust, the FJ-1 could reach Mach 0.87, the highest spreed of a US fighter to date. The initial production run of 100 FJ-1s was trimmed down to only 30 planes, and they first entered service in 1947. The land-based derivative of the FJ-1 became the XF-86, which managed to perform quite well, but not well enough for the USAF, so a complete redesign took place, resulting in the now-familiar F-86 Sabre shape.

The 30 FJ-1 Furies didn't serve for long in the Navy, as newer, faster, and more maneuverable jets came online, but it does have the distinction of being one of the first Navy jets and the father of the prolific and powerful Sabre lineage.

The Kit

The Siga kit of the FJ-1 Fury is pretty good, although it is not as good as the box would have you think. A quick glance at the box would make you think that this is a Hasegawa kit, as the styling of the entire boxtop imitates that of the current Hasegawa releases, right down to the small print on the side stating not where it was manufactured, but rather "Suggested by Japan". In fact, this kit is made in Russia or Poland or somewhere around there (I don’t know for sure, as it’s not listed anywhere I could find), and is molded in a medium gray plastic. The detailing is fairly good, with recessed panel lines throughout. There is an etched brass fret included to help polish off the cockpit, and the canopy is injection molded.

The cockpit itself is fairly decent and is made up of a combination of brass and plastic. Brass provides the instrument panel and side consoles, while there are plastic parts for the rest. If you don’t want to use the brass parts, the plastic parts can be painted up and detailed separately, and under the one-piece canopy it will still look quite good.

This kit will be a definite tail-sitter unless some weight is crammed in the nose, and luckily there is ample space to fit all kinds of weight. There was some minor warpage in the fuselage halves of the kit I received, but nothing to really be alarmed about. There was also some flash present as well, but a couple quick swipes with some sandpaper will take care of that. The fuselage has locating holes for both the wings and stabilizers, which makes things much easier in attaching those. The wings are split in top and bottom halves, with wheelwell detailing provided in the lower half. The wells are pretty shallow, though, and should be deeper (the wheels in the kit wouldn’t even fit halfway down in them).

The decal sheet provided is extensive and provides markings for two Furies. Not much can be said about the decals, as they are almost all white, so registration is not a problem. They look to be thin and opaque and shouldn’t be any problem going over the dark blue paint.

Conclusions

With this being the only injection molded 1/72 FJ-1 Fury out there, there really isn’t much to complain about. It is very buildable, but it will take some work due to the short-run injection technology used. But if you’re familiar with that type of model, this should have no surprises for you, and once done it will be a very nice addition to an early Navy collection. To continue adding to that collection, the upcoming releases from Siga include an FJ-2 Fury, a Grumman AF-2S/W Guardian, and a Martin AM-1 Mauler. If those kits are as good as this one, there will be plenty of happy modelers out there.