1/48 Academy Republic P-47D-25 Thunderbolt - 84th Fighter Squadron 78th Fighter Group 1944

 

Depicted as an aircraft flown by the 84th Fighter Squadron 78th Fighter Group England Autumn 1944.

I've always loved the P-47D, a big beautiful beast of a plane, Sadly and wrongly underrated when compared to the P-51D. IMHO the P-47D Bubbletop just looks cooler. The Thunderbolt destroyed more aircraft in air to air combat than the P-51D and despite it's size was very manoeuvrable.  But it's forte was ground attack, and along with the Hawker Typhoon it rates as may favourite single seater of WW2.

The Build

This kit is fairly good, although I had some trouble with the Decals (more on that later). Also the joints between the wing and fuselage on the underside were huge and required allot of filler. Still I paid $15 for this kit so I can't complain. 

I used a true details cockpit for this build.

I choose the unusual scheme of RAF dark Green and Sky. I had a picture of a 84 th Fighter squadron aircraft in a book that mention they were in this scheme.

As usual I agonized over the paints and ended up using Humbrol Enamels (149 for the green) and 64 for the underside. 

The Decals

I used the kit decals but completely screwed up the checkerboard decal on the nose, so much so that it was not salvageable . After much swearing and many attempts to paint the checks I put out a request on the Fine Scale Modelling Forums. A guy (thanks Daniel) replied saying that he would send me the decals for the kit. After e-mailing him my postal address we discover he lives 5 minutes away from me. Small world, anyway he also provided me with some valuable modelling tips when he dropped around. 

The kit was dusted in Tamiya smoke and a final coat of Gunze Flat clear and I'm pretty happy with the final result.

The Photos

Now it's been added to my Collection of WW 2 aircraft, which is slowly taking up all the spare shelf space in the house.

1/48 Revell Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress - Man-O-War II"/"Horsepower Ltd."

 

Depicted as "Man-O-War II"/"Horsepower Ltd." (LG-V). B-17G-25-DL Flying Fortress S/N 42-38083 from the 322nd Bomber Sqn, 91st Bomb Group 8th United Stated Army Airforce 

The aircraft was lost on November 2,1944 on a mission to Merseburg, Germany after being attacked by Fw-190's near the target and catching fire. 5 KIA, 4 POW. (Info from here)

The Build

This kit took me a long time as I was busy with real life stuff. The kit is a bit of a pain to build with all the clear parts and the huge gap between the lower wing and the Fuselage.  The ball turret also took me 3 tries, and I'm still not that happy with it.

The kit has a lot of detail on the inside so a skilled modeller (unlike me) may be able to do a cut away.

The Photos

1/48 Hasegawa Hawker Typhoon IIB - Wing Commander D J Scott Tangmere Wing 1943

 

Depicted as an aircraft flown by New Zealand Wing Commander D J Scott Tangmere Wing 1943

The Build

Originally I was going to build this out of the box and got the decals on. I applied a coat of Tamiya clear from the Spray can and this disaster occurred. Lesson learnt.

I picked up some new decals nice and cheap at a model show (Aero Master Storm in the Sky pt XII) and after stripping the model I came up with this effort. 

I am actually pretty happy with how it came out as I had managed to lose and break some pieces in the process. The Exhausts were Ultracast aftermarket ones as I lost one of them down the sink -  Doh!

The kit went together ok although it is obvious that the same basic kit is used for the "cab door" Typhoon, hence the fuselage comes in 4 pieces, I didn't really get these to fit as well as I should, so a bit of filler and sanding was required. There was also a huge gap (2-3mm) between the fuselage and the wings.

Painting and Finishing

The kit was painted with Humbrol Enamels, I gave up trying to find out the exact colours and just used what looked right. I used Pledge One Go as the gloss clear coat prior to applying decals and weathering. I used Tamiya Smoke for the exhaust and gun stains and also gave the entire model a light dust with this as well. The flat coat was Gunze Flat.

The Photos