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Yes, the Academy kit is the old HobbyCraft/Idea kit.

HobbyCraft kits were also sold under the Idea label, but the company that was actually producing most of the aircraft kits sold by HobbyCraft is a Korean company called Academy. There was some kind of legal dispute in the late 1990s/early 2000s and Academy won the rights to sell those kits under its own label.

The old Airfix kit (also issued by MPC), first manufactured in 1980, is of the F2H-2 version of the Banshee. The Academy-HobbyCraft kit (first released in 1987) is of the F2H-3/4 version. Academy-HobbyCraft’s kit has recessed panels lines (no rivets), parts fit is good. The dash-3/4 version is the larger, with much more room for internal fuel tanks, and a big radar in the nose.

The Airfix kit comes with an optional F2H-2P photo-recon nose. For some odd reason, my Airfix-MPC kit came with decals for only the fighter version, no markings for the P version! The kit has subtle raised panel lines (no rivets), the fit of the parts is good.

Short silent film of F2H-2P operations from USS Boxer (CVA-21) somewhere in the Sea of Japan (off the coast of Korea), 15JUN1953:

Airfix provides you with bombs and rockets, however, Airfix incorrectly has you mount the bombs on the outboard pylons. On the real aircraft the bombs, as well as rockets, were loaded onto inboard pylons, the outboard pylons were for rockets only. Airfix does not provide inboard pylons.

Academy-HobbyCraft provides only outboard pylons with rockets, no bombs in this kit.

The wings of both Banshees are close in span, but the dash-3/4 has a bigger wing area, which can be seen when comparing the kit parts.

You can see the differences in wing area and horizontal stabilizers. The dash-3 in this photo has not been updated with the ‘horsal’ extensions.

The Airfix horizontal stabilizers could be used on the dash-3/4, to replicate a non- ‘horsal’ updated version, you just have to mount them with a dihedral (upward angle).

The dash-3/4 horizontal stabilizers are mounted on the fuselage, the dash-2’s are mounted on the vertical stabilizer. The Academy-HobbyCraft kit comes with updated horizontal stabilizers, updated with what was supposedly called ‘horsal’ extensions. The dash-3/4 Banshees suffered from tail flutter which the extensions apparently solved. Notice the leading edge line which extends through the extension on the kit parts, this is not present on the real aircraft. I suspect that the lines allow the modeler to cut them off if they want to build a pre-horsal Banshee, however, there is no mention of such a possibility in the HobbyCraft instructions.

The so-called horsal extension update on the F2H-3/4, to stop tail flutter.

Interestingly, the landing gear on both kits look identical, it’s as if Academy-HobbyCraft copied the Airfix kit. The big problem with this is that the nose gear of the dash-3/4 is different than the dash-2, basically the Academy-HobbyCraft kit is wrong when it comes to the landing gear.

The tail-hook of the Airfix kit looks accurate, while the tail-hook of the Academy-HobbyCraft kit is insulting.

The artwork on the original 1987 issue HobbyCraft kit shows a Canadian Navy plane with a AIM-9 Sidewinder launch rail on an outboard pylon. The Canadian Navy did arm their Banshees with Sidewinders, but the HobbyCraft kit does not come with the anti-aircraft missiles or launch rails. The artwork also shows an accurate looking wingtip without the tip-tank, the kit parts (on both Airfix & HobbyCraft) fail to reflect the look of a tip-tankless Banshee.

Both kits are very basic by today’s standards. Apparently, Academy is the only producer of a 1/72nd F2H-3/4 Banshee. I’ve seen a few reviews of the Academy issue praising it for detail, but no folks, it is just the old HobbyCraft kit with much better decals. Recently, Czech manufacturer Sword produced a much better detailed 72nd scale F2H-2 Banshee (check on production status/availability), including the N (night fighter) and P (photo-recon) versions, with resin and photo-etched parts. They also have recessed panel lines and some divets, I mean recessed rivets. I don’t know if Sword made the nuclear capable F2H-2B.

Both the F2H-2B and F2H-3/4 could carry a single tactical nuke. To model one you’ll need to make a big pylon that goes under one of the air intakes, then probably modify a big fat external fuel tank to look like either a Mark-7 or Mark-8 nuclear bomb. In the above photo you can see that the air intake is not sharp edged, both Airfix and HobbyCraft made their kit’s intakes with sharp thin edges.

You can also add an In-Flight Refueling (IFR) probe to the upper port 20mm gun trough.

Both the Airfix and Academy-HobbyCraft kits are good as shelf-sitters or ceiling-hangers, and are good baselines for those who like to super-detail their models. On top of that, if you take the time to search you can usually find previously owned kits for cheap.

If you want to watch my ‘blah blah blah’ video review you can check out my ‘Model Kit Procrastinator’ playlist on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfmNI-GGQPM

Some pics & vids of the real thing: McDonnell F2H Banshee

Finally, an 11 month late birthday bomber build, another ancient Airfix B-24J Liberator is done! But, I now believe both of the old-skool 1/72 scale Airfix Liberators I built have an inherent molding problem, possibly the result of being produced in France:

The old Airfix kit is way outdated, having been first produced in the mid-1960s, however, I think it has one thing going for it; it’s raised rivet details.

If you look at war time photos of bare metal versions of the real thing you will see clearly that the Liberator is covered in noticeable raised rivets, and the old Airfix engineers were obviously obsessed with capturing that look.

This recent Airfix bomber kit build, and the other B-24 bomber I completed a year prior, suffered from the same problems; misshapen/warped fuselage parts. I realized both these kits were from the time period when Airfix was under new ownership that had moved production from merry ol’ England to France!

To deal with the warped/misshapen fuselage halves I had to cut off the mounting pins, then use plastic bread bag clips as ledges to force the starboard half to meet-up with the port half. The back half was glued first, then after dry the front half was glued.

Bread bag clips:

Unfortunately, the tail end of the fuselage is short on the starboard side and has to be fixed with putty and sanding. This problem is also found on the original Made in England issue of the kit.

I have an original 1960s Made in England kit which does not appear to have the fuselage warpage problems: