1/72 Academy P-51C Mustang

by Eddie Lau

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In the Beginning...

The P-51 was one of the most popular topics between modellers and manufacturers.  It was widely used in Europe, Mediterranean and Pacific theatre, massive numbers of them were built.

The Kit

The kit is the P-51C by Academy, which has a “common” P-51B/C body and wings, separate tail section, in this case, they provide one tail with vertical fin and RF antenna for CBI theatre.  It includes three decals: Nationalist China AF and 311FG in China, one 15AF in Italy respectively.  Note that the 15AF one is a late P-51B.  For payload, it has two types of drop tanks, 4.5”rockets and 500lb bombs.

Assembly

For building this kit, I started with the cockpit as usual, and it was improved with Eduard photo-etch to give it more detail.  The overall fit was quite good, even the tail section and body section are separated.  For the rest parts, like wing, wheels …etc also not too much special attention was needed, quite straight forward and enjoyable indeed.  I just needed to decide which version to build and select the correct parts mentioned in the instructions.

Click on images below to see larger images

  

Painting and Decaling

I chose the decal on the box art, the “Princess” in 311FG, China 1945.  First, I painted the yellow tail.  After that, I masked the tail yellow parts and painted the whole plane with black.  Next, masked the black two bars on the tail with masking tape and over the whole plane with silver spray.  At the end, I painted the rest of the parts, like wheels, wheel bays, the anti-glare olive green at the top of the plane.  I added some black to sliver to paint the exhaust pipe and gun bay cover, sadly over done this time.

Up to now, I still felt enjoyment, but sadly only until now.  The decals definitely the worst in the kit, even though I only needed to apply few of them.  Basically, this was not achieved and they were brittle, which made it impossible for them to stay on the surface, even decal solver did not help, I dilute the envelope glue with water as decal glue, this worked. At the end, I applied a layer of gloss finish and wash the panel lines with black enamel. I skipped the weathering to keep the plane shining.

Last but not least

Thanks my friend Alex for the kit, he did not know why there was a plane kit inside a AFV kit from auction bid, Haha.  Also thanks for advice and comments from ARC experts. :)

Eddie

Photos and text © by Eddie Lau