1/48 Tamiya North American Mustang III - 112 Sqn RAF - Italy 1944

 

Another aircraft from the famous 112 "Sharks Mouth" Sqn. I have a thing for "mouths" on aircraft. Dunno why, just think they look cool.

Unlike their UK/Western Europe counterparts, RAF Mustang IIIs in Italy were not generally fitted with the Malcolm Hood. This Mustang MkIII represents the mount of Flt. Lt. Raymond V. Hearn, No.112 Squadron, Italy, during 1944-1945. Hearn flew two tours with No.112 Sqn on Kittyhawks and Mustangs. He was the leader of B Flight and always used the individual letter "Q" on his aircraft. He downed a Ju 188 (some sources say 88) in this machine on 9 September 1944, even though only one of his four guns was working. Flt Lt Hearn was killed on what would have been his last sortie on 18 February 1945, his plane exploding after being hit by flak. The letter "Q" was not used again by the unit as a mark of respect.

Info provided by "MikeC" from the excellent Britmodeler forums. A must place to visit if (like me) you're into British aircraft of any type.

The Build

This was a pretty straight forward build, all the problems were of my own making.

The  pictures below show the cockpit, the decals for the instruments were punched out and applied individually, whilst this is time consuming I think it's worth the effort.  I added some wire for the antenna cabling and some Eduard PE seatbelts.

The kit went together extremely well , only 3 minor criticisms,  the bomb  racks need sway braces otherwise the bombs don't look right just hanging there. I made these out of wire. 

The inside of the Air cooler exhaust needed a bit of filler, and finally the underside of the air cooler has a panel line that doesn't quite line up so needed re-scribing. 

I also used Ultracast exhausts I also added a piece of fine wire to each undercarriage leg for the brake lines and an arming wire for the bombs.  

For the arming wires I drilled a small hole through the bomb at the rear of the arming propeller. Inserted a piece of fuse wire into this hole and bent to shape over the bomb then tucked it into the rear mounting point of the rack.

Painting and Finishing

Like every kit I've built recently that was painted twice, the first paint job orange peeled when I applied the gloss coat (my fault, bad airbrushing technique).  

I masked the kit out with blu-tack and used Gunze and Tamiya Acrylics. The Olive Drab was Gunze mixed with Tamiya Yellow green.  I know you're not supposed to mix paint brands but I've never had any trouble. The dark gray is Tamiya XF 24 with some white and the underside is Tamiya XF19. For the Gloss I used Pollyscale glass,

Decals are AeromasterNo 48-670, this sheet is popular here in Australian as it has a 3 Sqn RAAF Mustang on it. But as I'm not really into RAAF subjects the 112 Sqn shark mouth aircraft interested me. 

This  aircraft was painted in US paints roughly equivalent to the  RAF scheme (dark green, ocean gray and medium gray) so that added to the appeal (I've sold the remains of the decal sheet for anyone interested). As I started the build I noticed that the kit also has decals for nearly the same aircraft (GA-Q serial FB-239), of course I never noticed until I'd bought the decals. The decal went down without trouble over the Pollyscale gloss.

The wash (as usual) was Promodelers Weathering Sludge Wash for the wash. I like this stuff as being water based it's forgiving, cleans up easy and doesn't need to sealed prior to decaling. Some more weathering was done with pastels and sliver pencil and silver paint. Final flat coat is Gunze. Flat

The kit was sealed with Gunze Flat and lightly weathered with pastel chalks and a silver pencil. I didn't go overboard as I really couldn't be bothered, although I'd say these aircraft had a hard life in Italy performing mainly ground attack missions. Overall this was a pretty fun build, I can highly recommend this kit for anyone wanting a no stress kit to build.

The Photos