PYN-UP Decals

1/48 P-51D Pretty Fillies Part 1 decal sheet

Product # PYND48003 for $17.99

Product Article by Steve Bamford on Aug 4  2004

 

 

 

This new decal sheet from Cutting Edge Modelworks includes markings for two different 1/48 P-51D Mustangs.  

The first aircraft is a P-51D-5-NA Mustang flown by Lt. Walter “Moon” Mullins with 55th FS of the 20th FG out of Kingscliffe, England in the fall of 1944.  This particular Mustang is an earlier P-51 and doesn’t have the fin fillet, so if your kit comes with the fin fillet…..you’ll have to cut it away and fill in the hole.  The paint scheme on this aircraft is overall bare metal/silver in appearance with Olive Drab for the anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen and behind the canopy on top of the fuselage and up the leading edge of the tail.  The top of the wings and tail surfaces are Olive Drab with black stripes.  The underside of the wings have black stripes matching the top of the wings.  The nose art is applied to an Olive Drab base and comes with a white decal to place under the noseart decal to avoid colour bleed through.  The prop spinner has a white tip with the rear part of the prop spinner being black.  The forward edge of the engine cowl has a black stripe with a white stripe behind the black stripe (the white stripe is provided as a decal).  The code letter on the side of the rear fuselage are “KI S” with a blue and white national insignia between the letter.  The tail contains a large black triangle with a large “S” in the center….this triangle reminds me of the triangle sometimes seen on B-17’s that operated over Europe.   

The noseart decals are delicate and two are included for each plane in case you mess up the first ones.  Exacting instructions are included on how to prepare and install these decals…..read these instructions carefully to avoid disaster.  Apparently these noseart decals are very thin and need special care, but once installed they will look very accurate and realistic.  The nose art decals are printed on a one piece decal sheet, so you’ll need to cut the decal free from the rest of the decal film…..patience is the key here.  The noseart decal is beautifully printed with fantastic detail and lovely shading.  Sadly Lt. Walter “Moon” Mullins died in a crash over the North Sea on a training flight on October 18 1944.  

The second aircraft is a P-51D-20-NA Mustang flown by Capt. Charles E. Weaver with 362nd FS of the 367th FG out of Leiston, England in the April of 1945.  The paint scheme on this aircraft is overall bare metal/silver in appearance with Olive Drab for the anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen.  The top and bottom of the wings and tail surfaces are bare metal/silver in appearance.  The nose art is applied to an white base decal to avoid colour bleed through.  The prop spinner is red and yellow striped and the forward edge of the engine cowl has a red and yellow checker band.  The code letter on the side of the rear fuselage are “G4 A” with a blue and white national insignia between the letter.  This aircraft has formation lights fitted to the side of the fuselage and these are provided as decals.  It is not known if the formations light were blue or red.....so both decals are included. 

This aircraft has The noseart for this aircraft is a naked reclining brunette wearing high heels.  Again.....I will refer you to the special instructions mentioned for the noseart decals earlier in this review....these instructions apply to the noseart decals for this aircraft as well.  The decals were flawlessly printed and in perfect registration and the clear carrier film is trimmed very close to the crisply printed colored areas.  You get enough stencils and national insignia for one aircraft. 

The instructions are clear and include 3 views of each aircraft and an extra page of text instructions is included with a small bit of info about both the planes as well as helpful tips for decal application. 

Other products to consider when building your P-51 are the Black Magic canopy and wheel hub masks (CEBM48164) for the Tamiya kit.  

Click on images below to see larger images of the instruction sheets

A very nice decal sheet and  sure to please the lucky 300 people that manage to buy one of these limited edition sheets.  

I would like to thank Cutting Edge Modelworks for providing me with this review sample.

Steve

Photos and text © by Steve Bamford