Background:
Mexico began receiving Douglas A-24
Banshee (equivalent to the SBD-5 Dauntless but with different tail wheel and no
tail hook) in 1943. They flew anti-submarine patrols in the Gulf of Mexico.
Many schemes were used and information is not very clear about the colors used
and the only references photos I found aren't great and B/W only.
Most of the info I found is from The
extraofficial Fuerza Aerea Mexicana homepage.
Click on
images below to see larger images
The kit:
The kit is great.
Fit is excellent except for the lower wing and lower flap. Other than that it's
easy to build and doesn't have too many pieces. It could use cockpit detailing
with aftermarket items, but I decided to build it OOB. Also the bombs and tail gun
are a little too simplistic. I mostly build modern day jets. I do not know how
accurate or inaccurate the kit is.
Building it:
As I mentioned I
built it OOB. The only extra being a nylon antenna. It was a fairly quick build.
The only time consuming task being the drilling of the flap holes. To my
surprise most of the circles (simulated holes) in the upper flaps coincided with
the ones in the lower flaps. That really helped.
Paint and decals:
Again I went for the
simple. I choose this two color scheme. Masking the canopy was a major task for
me. I used Tamiya tape and magic tape with mixed results. Many of the frame
lines are so thin that they were destroyed (paint chipped) when I peeled the
tape or when I ran a knife around them to separate the paint from the masks.
I used Tamiya tape
to mask and paint the yellow stripes. The landing gear was supposed to be chrome
yellow. But I didn't have that particular paint at hand and didn't want to
disturb the pace so I used what I had at hand: Tamiya's flat yellow.
Decals are from
Aztlan. A little off register. They are somewhat old and thus fragile.
Even
though I sprayed the whole sheet with clear coat I had to replace a couple of
roundels. I replaced them with the superb roundels from Aztec Models.
I used the black
stripes from the kit decal sheet.
Closing comments:
I feel pretty good
with the end result. It took me less than a month to build and it was a joy.
Although it's far from perfect and it's no contest material I like it. It
represent my country :D
Saludos desde
Mexico.
Carlos
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