As I am writing this I am currently working on a P-51D Mustang. Rather than finish it in the usual RAF or USAF markings I have markings for the Chinese Nationalist Air Force (CNAF) which is the precursor to the modern air force of Taiwan.
Before Japan invaded China the country was rife with civil war as the Nationalists and Communists battled for control of the country. In fact even during the war with Japan the Nationalists and Communists continued to attack one another so bitter was their rivalry. Before the Japanese invasion the Nationalists were at the clear advantage with superior equipment and better trained infantry but the war with Japan proved costly as the Nationalists gave it their all trying to repel the invasion.
The Communists, on the other hand, preferred fighting in smaller units harassing the Japanese behind their own lines. In the truth it would seem the Communists were holding back and reserving their strength for after the war with Japan. When Japan was defeated the Communists came out of the war very strong and acquired a huge inventory of Japanese equipment.
As soon as Japan surrendered its forces in China the civil war kicked off again in earnest. The Communists quickly found the Soviet Union willing to supply ‘advisors’ and equipment covertly to help in the war effort. The Nationalists had been receiving assistance during the war with Japan from the United States and this assistance continued for a time afterwards. Some of the aircraft supplied to the Nationalists included the P-51 Mustang, the P-47 Thunderbolt and B-25 Mitchell bombers.
Although the Nationalists put up a staunch resistance they ultimately could not hold back the Communists forces and were eventually pushed back to the larger island of Taiwan and some of the smaller islands surrounding it. Mainland China was declared the People’s Republic of China by the Communists who were now firmly in control while the Nationalists formed the Republic of China on Taiwan. The civil war in China has never officially ended and the two sides remain tense to this day with the threat of all-out war always on the horizon.
I picked up this kit second hand at the IPMS Ireland Nationals during October. From the look of the box I was expecting the kit to be old and, honestly, a bit of a dog; how wrong I was! The kit has finely engraved panel lines and rivet detail, it includes a nicely detailed cockpit and also includes two different types of external fuel tank as well as two different canopy styles.
I started work on the cockpit as usual and immediately ran into a question, what colour is the cockpit of a Mustang? I know that can be a controversial subject at times, although perhaps more-so with other aircraft like Irish Hurricanes (*cough*), so I looked up an article on IPMS Stockholm and found a distinct lack on consistency with the Mustang and its interior colour. It would appear that the U.S government wasn’t to concerned with the exact shade of a particular paint and most paints were sourced as close to the manufacturing plant as possible resulting in various shades of paint being used, even those with the same name.
Possible paint shades for the Mustang include Chromate Green, Interior Green and Bronze Green. Towards the end of WWII and during the Korean War another option was Flat Black. Although the kit instructions advised Flat Black I thought Chromate Green would make for a more interesting look. I used Citadel Camo Green to represent the Chromate Green and I think it works well, it may be bit light in the picture above but after a gloss and matt coat it should darken down.
The cockpit in this kit is pretty well detailed; the front console is busy with raised detail as are the side consoles, the cockpit seat features defined seatbelts with buckles and behind the seat is what I presume to be a radio rack.
From what I’ve read the floor of the cockpit was made with plywood and may, or may not, have been painted black. I decided against painting it black in order to add a splash of colour variation to the cockpit although, in truth, with the canopy fitted it probably wouldn’t be visible. Anyway, the cockpit floor was painted with Revell Africa Brown which provides a light wooden look to the floor. The rest of the cockpit was painted in Camo Green except for the consoles which were painted black and picked out with two metallic paints, one light and one dark. The detail on the front console was picked out in various reds, yellows, whites and greens.
The radio rack is a tricky piece of work because it is both stepped, as intended, but also has a nasty seam running the entire way around its body. Intensive sanding would cause a fair bit of detail to be lost so I only cleaned it up a little and painted it black hoping to hide the seam.
After I had finished the cockpit I gave it two washes of Citadel Badab Black and one of Flory Models Dark Dirt to give it a heavily used appearance. These Mustangs would’ve been involved in heavy fighting and opportunities for maintenance would’ve been sparse.
If you look at the last few pictures above you’ll notice the front console might be sitting a bit to far forward. I think it is to far forward because when I closed the fuselage halves the cockpit leaned off to one side. The lean was nothing dramatic but something like that is the sort of thing that causes perspective issues when sighting down the length of the fuselage to ensure everything is aligned properly.
As it turns out that little lean would be the least of my problems when it came to perspective and alignment.
I don’t know if it was a problem with the production run of this kit or just this particular kit but the join of the fuselage didn’t go very well because from the large intake, under the Mustang, back to the tail the alignment of the kit halves was terribly off. Furthermore sighting down the length of the fuselage several times made apparent that the tail was twisted off to one side.
There wasn’t much I could do about a twisted tail so I focused on sanding down the seam lines left over from the fuselage joining. I had five to deal with including one above and below the nose, behind the cockpit, behind the belly intake and behind the tail wheel well. I wanted to be careful sanding these down as this kit had intricate rivet and panel line detail on both sides of the nose so I went out and purchased a packet of Emery boards. I used the fine side of the boards throughout the build which doesn’t leave lines and grooves in the plastic and in order to protect the detail further I wrapped key areas in masking tape. The boards will wear the tape down over time but better the tape wearing down than the detail in the kit. While working on the seams I occasionally painted on some thinned down grey in order to highlight them, the paint will seep into the seam and make it more defined giving you a better view of it.
I spent quite a while working on the seams in order to get them perfect and I can happily state that I succeeded with four out of the fives seams; one seam leading from the mouth of the intake to the front of the tail wheel well follows a curve but also crosses two large protrusions and so was difficult to remove.
Next I joined the wing halves, without issues, and dry fitted the wings to the fuselage; this involved slotting the wings under the fuselage and above the belly intake where it meets with a buttress wall. Now because of the warping of the fuselage rear that buttress wall had formed a bad step in it which would’ve left a gap on one side of the wing to fuselage join. In order to fix it I cut out a small piece of plasticard and slotted it in into the step to form a straight wall. A bit of filler and a little filing later and it was perfect.
The join between the wings and fuselage, however, was not at all perfect. On one side of the wing, the one in the picture above, there was just the usual wing root to fill but on the other side the wing root was wider and the towards the rear of the wing there was a step that couldn’t really be filled. Working on some advice I took a round file and gently filed down the step and filled the rest of the wing roots.
Again, I can’t say if it is a problem with this particular kit but the tail wings didn’t line up properly either. I followed the locating tabs but it’s obvious on the kit, from the detail around the locating tabs, that each side is out of alignment with on another.
I didn’t bother trying to fix this issue. It might seem by now that this kit isn’t worth the trouble what with warping and alignment issues but I can assure you that this kit is beautifully detailed and will turn out a great finish with some work. If I found this kit again I’d definitely pick it up.
With all the main components added to the fuselage I primed it in Halfords Grey which goes on really fine and comes out in a great shade of grey. I believe there are two types of Halfords primer, one which states it is for plastic and one that doesn’t. Well this is the one that doesn’t and it doesn’t damage the plastic at all.
I did have an accident where the spray went on to thickly on one wing, my mistake not the primers, and I had to sand down some clumps of built up stuff while it was soft and then ‘rescribe’ the panel lines which was less like rescribing and more like clearing gunk gently with a knife.
All in all I would definitely recommend Halfords to anyone, it makes for a fine primer and is much better than the Humbrol spray I was using before. It also leaves you a good surface for applying a metalcoat which will be coming up in Part II.
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