This is a
P-51K (Mustang IVa in RAF service) of 442 (Caribou) Sqn RCAF. It was the
CO James Storrar's plane and carries his initials "JAS" as a
code, rather than the standard "Y2". This plane only flew one
combat mission, on 9th May 1945, providing top cover during the liberation
of the Channel Islands, the only British territory to be occupied by the
Germans during World War 2.
I made two
changes to the plane as it appeared in May 1945 - I left the seat armour
installed, even though it had been removed by this time, pending its
conversion to a two-seater (the gunsight was also removed from this
plane), and I added the RCAF Maple Leaf motif on the tail, even though
this was only applied to a few Mustangs in the squadron and may not have
appeared on Storrar's. This fitted well with our club's annual competition
theme celebrating our twinned status with IPMS Ottawa, who kindly supplied
the decals.
I need say
nothing about the Tamiya P-51D kit - it's a real beauty. It practically
falls together, and it's the first kit I've built which didn't need any
putty at all. I spruced up the cockpit with a True Details set, which was
excellent value for money. Only a small amount of sanding was required to
make it fit, and it builds up really nice. I used several placards and the
instrument panel from the Eduard etched set which also adapted easily to
the True Details pit. A late addition was the Aires gun bay set which
showed how much practice I still need at cutting out panels accurately!
Click on
images below to see larger images
The real fun
part was the painting and finishing - references suggested that the plane
was a) new; and b) kept highly polished, as it was the CO's plane. So I
used kitchen foil for the bare metal areas, and Gunze Mr Metal Color
Metalizers for the wings and flying surfaces. I used Peter Doll's
technique for staining the foil different shades by boiling strips of it
with eggshells - the results were surprisingly good! I used slightly
thinned PVA glue to stick on the foil, and buffed it down with cotton
swabs and after drying, fine steel wool to get a nice "milled
metal" finish.
Decals were from
IPMS Canada's Sweating Beaver range which had great instructions and painting
suggestions, and as an added bonus included resin louvred vents for the front
cowling. The decals were a bit brittle and the first I have used which did not
respond well to Klear (Future) as a setting agent. Nevertheless, it all went
mostly to plan and came up as a reasonable rendition of Wing Commander James
Storrar's mount at the end of the war in Europe.
Brian
Click on
images below to see larger images
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