This is Accurate Miniatures'
(ex-Eduard) offering of Bell P-39Q-1 Airacobra. The Airacobra is armed
with two .50 cal machine guns in the cowl and another 37mm cannon in the
nose of the aircraft. This variant, the P-39Q-1 has additional .50 cal
machine guns on both wings. The engine of the craft is mounted in the mid
section of the aircraft to provide a streamlined nose profile and to host
the 37mm cannon. Due to it's design, the aircraft had the tendency to go
into a flat spin.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The kit is built entirely out of
the box fashion. The details from the cockpit to the exterior panel lines
look superb. Thanks to the included pre-formed mask, covering those clear
parts is easy. In fact, if you weren't to paint this kit, you could build
it in just a day! The box also has extra unused tidbits because you could
do any P-39/P-400 of your choice. Checking other references is a must when
you want to build other versions. The decals were made by Cartograf, and
they look great. They're quite thin and a small coat of your favorite
decal softener will fix the decals to the plane.
Despite being
beautiful, the kit has some flaws. First, I wish Accurate Miniatures supplied a
clear instrument panel just like their Dauntless that I've built two years ago.
Second, there is a noticeable large gap when attaching the wings to the fuselage
area. I recommend dryfitting first before gluing the wings. Last and if not the
most deadly among all is that the plane is a tail sitter! I recommend adding
weights to the front before gluing the halves of the fuselage. I noticed this
only after placing the wheels after the kit was painted.
Ralph
Click on
images below to see larger images
|