P-51D
Mustang - Fuerza Aérea Guardia
Nacional de Nicaragua
Some
of the most exotic Mustangs in Latin American service were those used by the Air
Force of the National Guard of Nicaragua. The largest batch of P-51D/K was
received in 1955 from the Royal Sweden Air Force, supplemented by others from
the USAF surplus stocks. These warbirds saw extensive service during the border
tensions with Honduras, in COIN missions against anti-Somoza rebels, as well as in many covert (and
uncovert) military missions in support of CIA operations in the region. The last
Nicaraguan P-51's were retired in early 1970's due the lack of spares.
THE
KIT
After
building several Mustangs from different manufacturers, I can say the Academy is
by far a much better kit in terms of detail and accuracy. It has a well detailed
cockpit, control panels and wheel bays. However, I found some difficulties with
the assembled cockpit when joining fuselage halves so I needed to make some cuts
to make it fit correctly. Also, there are some sink marks in the interior walls
of wheel bay doors that must be eliminated. Finally, in my opinion the clear
canopy was a little bit large and the windshield had the hole to place a rear
view mirror that these planes didn't use in Nicaraguan service…
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images below to see larger images
CONSTRUCTION
The
building of this model was really enjoyable and easy. However, I needed to do some
sanding to delete all joints and seam lines, but there was no excessive extra
job and the entire process went through with no problems at all.
PAINTING
Nicaraguan
Mustangs sported an NMF with very colorful bands on the wings intended to facilitate
identification. I only used the following Model Master's Metalizers: Aluminum
non-buff, Steel and Exhaust for the entire body, applying different shades to
panels in wings and fuselage, according to my reference pictures. I masked with
Tamiya tape after reducing its adherence to prevent peeling the previous paint
job. I didn’t applied any primer before metalizers, mostly because the surface
suffered almost no damages during the assembly process.
DECALS
This
was my chance to finally use this version from the impressive Aztec Decals'
Macho Mustangs II decal set provided by my good friend Aldo Flores. All decals
were placed after a coat of Future applied with a wide brush, to provide a shiny
and uniform surface. Then I sealed the entire work with another coat of Future,
applied in the same way a day after. I preferred not to use the Metalizer Sealer
this time and I think it looks good enough for me…
WEATHERING
There
was no need to do any kind of weathering because I tried to catch a very clean
look of these beautiful Nicaraguan fighters.
CONCLUSION
This
model won a first place in a local special contest in October, receiving a nice
trophy from my modeler colleagues of La Silla Scale Modeling Club….In November
7th, it also got another first place in the "Out of Box" category at
the regional contest in Monterrey, so finally I had something to convince my
wife that the time spent in the hobby is worth =)
REFERENCES
-
"Latin
American Air Wars 1912-1969", Dan Hagedorn. Hikoki Publications.
-
Articles
from the Air Combat Information Group website
Thank
you all and regards from Monterrey, México.
Fernando I. Moreno
Villa
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