Detroit Miss - 1:48 Airfix Mustang Mk.IV/P-51K

-51 MUSTANG P BUILD 10 –

Detroit Miss

Alan Price builds the 1:48 Airfix Mustang Mk.IV/P-51K Mustang

he Airfix P-51D Mustang is a lovely kit, and I have

Talready built two of them to a specific remit, so when the editor said I could ‘build what I wanted’, I armed myself with another kit, and that’s exactly what I did! The Airfix Mustang is very nicely detailed, the cockpit in particular is a real gem and I decided the only upgrade I would make was to add some Eduard seat belts and add the wiring to the radio behind the pilot’s seat. I wasn’t even going to replace the instrument panel, just use the kit decal. Now for the colour scheme, I wanted something colourful and with invasion stripes, and as you can imagine there are a lot of decals available for 1:48 Mustangs, so it took me quite a while to settle on a colour scheme. Eventually, I decided to use Lifelike Decals set 48-052 covering a number of interesting Mustangs including the markings for ‘Detroit Miss’, Lt. Urban Drew’s aircraft in which he shot down two Me 262s during one mission. Lifelike have done a lot of research for these decals and the instructions provide some excellent analysis of the available photographs. This aircraft is usually shown with red wing tips but Lifelike made a convincing case for blue. I went with their colours for this model, some may not agree but I have to say that reviewing the images with their analysis makes a convincing case.

The first job I decided to tackle was to correct the cockpit opening. The kit has this squared-off towards the back of the cockpit when it should follow the shape of the fuselage. The area was sometimes covered by a plate (as in the new Eduard kit). This was quickly modified with a scalpel blade. Having opened this up, it was now possible to see the top of the fuel tank, so a filler pipe was added leading to the port side filler cap. For this, some 3mm plastic rod was used, bent to an appropriate shape. A beading tool was used to add the missing fastener detail around the seals on the top of the fuel tank. The kit has quite a complex interior and it pays to check the instructions carefully in order to get everything fitting

Airfix North American Mustang Mk.IV/P-51K Mustang

MANUFACTURER: AIRFIX SCALE: 1:48 KIT T YPE: PL ASTIC INJEC TION MOULDED KIT NUMBER: A05137 EDUARD #FE854 - P-51D SEATBELTS LIFELIKE DECALS #48-052 - NORTH AMERIC AN P-51 MUSTANG PT.6

While the kit ’s moulded seatbelts are quite good, however, the Eduard ones really make a big difference

together properly. Having built the kit before I knew how things worked so I first painted all the interior parts for the complex intake trunking inside the fuselage. The parts were all airbrushed with a coat of Alclad II ALC-101 Aluminium. The cockpit area was then masked, and the centre section airbrushed with Mr. Hobby H58 Interior Green. A black wash was then applied over all the parts and left to dry. The cockpit floor, being wood, was painted with H79 Sandy Yellow, oils were then used to create the wood grain effect before a coat of Tamiya X-26 Clear Orange was applied. The seat was prepared by first removing the moulded-on seat belts and then engraving the seat back detail where the belts had been. The seat was fixed to the armoured seat back and the assembly was then airbrushed with H330 Dark Green, to simulate the Bronze Green colour often used on the seats. A black wash was again used to help bring out the details. Various Humbrol enamels were used to pick out the detail on the cockpit parts before applying the decals. Finally, a matt varnish was airbrushed over all the parts before gluing the fuselage interior parts into one major assembly ready to be fixed in place. While the fit of the fuselage is very good, closing around the complex interior with no problem, the tail has a few problems. I have found that it seems to have a noticeable twist, this is visible in the prominent step in the seams aft of the tail wheel bay and it seems to be caused by the fit of the tail wheel bay inside the fuselage. This is made more difficult by the separate fin parts and the offset to the fin, which was a feature of the Mustang, to help combat swing caused by the propeller. Try as I did, I was still unable to achieve

a perfect alignment of the tail, and this meant that the horizontal tail surfaces were difficult to align. Fortunately, this is not easy to see on the completed model but it’s still a source of annoyance to me. The tail is the only area where there is any filling and sanding to do, the seems around the tail gear bay needed fixing and some attention was required around the insert which ties the interior ducting to the fuselage just forward of the tail wheel bay. Other than that, this is a kit that needs little attention to the seams. One extra filling job was to fill in the holes in the carburettor intakes on either side of the nose as on this aircraft they were covered over to prevent icing. These were filled then sanded back and due to the depth of the holes in the parts, it took a few rounds of filling and sanding to eliminate them completely. With the fuselage now mostly built up, I

As the kit cockpit is well detailed, I only added the radio wiring and fuel filler pipe. Oils created the wood grain effect on the plywood floor

This is the completed cockpit interior, the extra details added just help to complete the picture The cockpit looks very busy once installed into the fuselage. The fit is excellent, and everything lines up perfectly

The fuselage closed up easily around the interior parts, and the tail wheel has to be fitted at this stage, sadly leaving it open to damage wile handling the model later

The cockpit sides received the same painting effects as the rest of the cockpit. The cockpit is not quire finished here; the oxygen pipe has not been fitted to the starboard side

The undercarriage bay needs to be painted and finished before gluing in place as its not possible to reach the outer areas after it has been installed Wingtip identification lamps here receive their correct colours, the inside of the upper wing was painted silver to act as a reflector

P-51 MUSTANG BUILD 10 – After assembling the wings, these were quickly attached, again the fit is very good with little if any work being needed around the seams Attaching the windscreen needs some careful work to get it to sit correctly otherwise a noticeable step can be left on the starboard side. The canopy was masked once it was attached, ready for painting

Ready to paint. The model was given a thorough clean up, making sure all the panel lines were cleaned of sanding residue and removing any grease from finger prints The cockpit needed to be well protected during painting so after covering it with Tamiya Masking Tape, Mr. Hobby Mr. Masking Sol Neo was painted over the tape to ensure nothing came undone

Black is an excellent undercoat for metallic paint, so the model received an overall coat of gloss black

The painting process began with a coat of Mr. Surfacer, sprayed from an aerosol can

Alclad Aluminium was used for all the metal painted areas of the model. These were then masked, and the rest of the model painted with a normal metallic silver to represent the ‘painted’ areas of the airframe Painting the invasion stripes on the fuselage was a tricky job, here the area is being masked prior to painting the white

moved on to the wings. The first job here was to paint the undercarriage bay. This was first airbrushed with Alclad ALC-103 Dark Aluminium before picking out the details with Humbrol enamels. A black wash completed this part and it could then be glued in place on the wing. Its worth noting that generally the undercarriage bays were not painted though some early P51s did have them painted Interior Green. RAF Mustangs had the spar at the back of the undercarriage bay painted with yellow Zinc Chromate Primer and the rest of it either unpainted, or painted Aluminium. Before closing the wings, the wingtip lamps were fitted and painted with the correct clear colours and the holes opened up for the wing hard points. The assembled wing fits extremely well into the fuselage location, but its important to check the front to rear alignment with the wing though before committing to glue. The wing on this kit seemed to fit differently to the last two I had built, being slightly loose at the wing root, for reasons I couldn’t work out. A length of off-cut sprue was used to widen the fuselage slightly, removing the slight gap. The tail surfaces were then attached, the rudder needed a bit of attention with a sink mark near the bottom being filled with Mr. Surfacer.

The nose of the model was built up next, attaching the wing to fuselage fillet and then checking the fit of the windscreen and engine cowling. The windscreen tends to sit over to the port side so a little cutting and trimming then carefully gluing the part in place saw this fitting somewhat better. This in turn meant the cowling fitted up against the windscreen much better, almost eliminating the slight step on the starboard side. At this point the airframe was essentially complete and the next stage was to give the whole model a clean up, using Micromesh to sand and polish the surfaces. Any defects found were repaired and then I masked the undercarriage bays, cockpit and canopy ready to start painting.

‘Miss Detroit’ was typical of many late-War Mustangs, colourfully painted and well maintained. Photographs show mustangs of this period to be generally quite

With the colours all applied, the paintwork was sealed with a coat of gloss and it was time for the decals With the invasion stripes done, the wing identification stripes were next, as were the darker metallic areas around the exhausts Here the invasion stripes can be seen in the underside, it was not clear how these were painted around the opening radiator door, so the area was left aluminium

The Cartograf decals were excellent and went on with no issues

-51 MUSTANG P BUILD 10 – A dark wash helped to bring out the detail, note that now the serial number is on the rudder, the blue has been painted up to the edge of it Almost there- the final finish has been applied and the model is nearly complete

clean even showing little in the way of exhaust staining. The aircraft had the standard bare alloy fuselage with filled/painted wings. The way the wings were filled and painted did vary, some had the entire upper wing done, and others were only done from the leading edge to the chord mid-point. The underside was generally filled and painted from the leading edge to at least the chord mid point, but this didn’t encroach on the wing fuel tanks aft of the undercarriage bays. Unless you can find photos of a particular aircraft, it’s not really possible to work out how the wings were finished so it’s up to the modeller to decide.

Painting began with an overall coat of Mr. Surfacer, applied from an aerosol. Once dry I flatted this with a piece of 3600 grit Micromesh then the model was given a coat of Tamiya X-1 Gloss Black. This is the perfect base for metallic paints and applying these began by painting the fuselage with Alclad II ALC-101 Aluminium. The unpainted parts of the wings were next given a coat of the same paint. Next these areas were masked and the ‘painted’ areas of the wings were given a coat of Tamiya X-11 Chrome Silver. This was immediately airbrushed with a coat of Microscale Gloss to protect the delicate paint. After the masking was removed, I had the entire model in its basic metallic finish. On the fuselage, a few panels were masked and airbrushed with Alclad II ALC-103 Dark Aluminium to break up the finish a bit. Next came the difficult part – masking and painting the colourful markings. I started by masking the fuselage invasion stripes and this was not an easy job due to the complex curves over the wing roots and around the radiator ducts. The outline of the area was masked and then airbrushed with white. The white stripes were then marked out and masked, and the black stripes were airbrushed with

a very dark grey mix. The wing identification stripes were masked and airbrushed with the same dark grey used for the invasion stripes. The Lifelike markings guide said the presence of a fin stripe would not be confirmed so I left this off.

The blue for the wing tips, canopy and rudder came next, for these I used Tamiya XF_8 Flat Blue. The gun ports were also masked and airbrushed with Tamiya XF-7 Flat Red. Work moved on to the nose with the windscreen area receiving a coat of Mr. Hobby H52 Olive Drab before masking the yellow area for the nose and airbrushing this with Mr. Hobby H329 Yellow. The last job was to mask the carburettor blanking plates, and these were airbrushed black. While this may have sounded like just a series of mask-and-paint sessions, it seemed like every time I did something, I affected something else. Despite covering the model in masking, I kept getting overspray, something which I hardly ever have issues with. I had some paint lifting on the wing stripes too, again something which I have rarely had a problem with. Perhaps this was just ‘one of those builds’ where things just seem to go wrong! Finally, after what seemed like weeks, the painting was finished, sealed with gloss and it was time for the decals.

Fortunately, the decal process was nice and simple. The Lifelike decals were printed by Cartograf so I knew these should be excellent and they were. The process took two evenings, the main markings being applied on the first, the remaining ones (stencils etc) on the next with Microscale setting solutions being used. After giving the model a quick post-decal clean-up, the decals were sealed with a coat of Klear. A wash was applied next to help bring out the moulded details and I used Flory Models Dark Dirt for this job. This was sealed with a further coat of Klear. I had prepared most of the remaining parts that were left to

attach, the undercarriage was all finished as was the propeller, so these were next glued into place. The undercarriage fits securely into sockets in the wing ensuring the undercarriage is at the correct angle to the wings. This is important on a Mustang as getting the angle wrong can make the model look very odd. The undercarriage doors attached to the undercarriage legs locate into cut-outs in the wing so when the doors were glued to the undercarriage legs, I dry fitted the undercarriage to the model to ensure the doors set in the correct position.

With the real aircraft being fairly clean I decided to limit weathering to exhaust stains and these were applied with a mid-grey mix which I mixed from black & white in the airbrush cup. The real aircraft showed a distinct pattern around the flare port on the port side of the cockpit, to replicate this I applied a small square of Tamiya Masking tape over the port then misted a light coat of the exhaust stain paint over the area. After removing the tape, the resulting effect was similar that seen in the photographs. The model was now almost complete, so I decided it was time to apply the final finish. For this I used MR Paint MRP-126 Super Clear Semimatt. Several light coats were applied which toned down the gloss finish. The cockpit and canopy masking was then removed and the open section of the canopy test-fitted. On the real aircraft, as the canopy opened it sat down onto the fuselage. The kit part won’t do this without some modification. The inside edges need to be scraped with a blade to thin them until the canopy will sit lower. To help this, the lower corners of the canopy brace need to be cut off square. The modified canopy can then be glued in place using the squared-off brace to glue it to the cockpit sides. I had assembled and painted the paper drop tanks commonly used at this point in the War, so these were attached to the hardpoints. The final job was to add the wingtip navigation lights using drops of Microscale Kristal Klear which were painted with the appropriated clear colours once dry. The Airfix Mustang is a very good kit and I really enjoyed this build despite the painting problems! The finished model looks great and really captures the look I was after.