George Preddy’s Last Cripes A’Mighty

1/48 Hasegawa P-51D

by Pablo Calcaterra

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Background:

During a business trip to Greensboro, North Carolina I was surprised to see the airport full with blue nosed P-51 replicas. Some were even hanging from the roof and were quite large (1/4th?).

Walking around I found a display of pictures of a Mustang pilot along with 4 x 1/48th beautiful planes. When I approached the display, a senior gentleman approached me and we started to talk about how good it was that the heritage was being preserved in such a good way.  He explained to me who George Preddy was and I was able to buy the last copy of his biography in the airport Bookstore!

I then discovered that Preddy is the top-scoring Mustang with almost 27 victories (24 in Mustangs) and that was killed in a friendly incident by American anti-aircraft fire during the Battle of the Bulge. It still calls my attention that, as famous as the Mustang is, you barely hear about Preddy.  He is not sung as Gabreski, Johnson or Bong.  Yet, he is the top scoring pilot in the famous (arguably the best fighter plane of WWII) North American P-51 Mustang…

I therefore decided to get in touch with the author of the book, Joe Noah.  He put me in touch with Sam Sox and I bought Hasegawa’s Blue Nose Mustang.  As the decals are not great and have several mistakes, Sam got me the Eagle Decals #100 set.  Amazing set, with a nice book full of pictures and drawings.  And by the way, I was told by Joe that the gentleman at the airport is one of Preddy’s youth friends, Otto Gaskins, who is there trying to keep George’s memory alive. What a friend!

For more information about the Preddy Brothers, please check www.preddy-foundation.org 

Building the Mustang:

Following the directions from the Eagle Decals book, it is very easy to understand the modifications required.

The Hasegawa Mustangs goes together really easy. The only modification required is to cover the holes in the little panels under the nose.  A little bit of filler in some areas and that’s it!

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I decided to use Alclad II for the first time, as I wanted to give the plane the best shinny finish possible.  So once the kit was assembled, I sprayed it completely with gloss black enamel.

Then I painted the red rudder and masked it along with the blue nose area to use it later as a guide to paint it.

After practicing for a few minutes on a broken plane, I started to work with Alclad on the Mustang. AMAZING! I could not believe my eyes.  It was as good and shinny as the models I see in Internet.  The only problem: you have to have a perfect flat surface cause the imperfections really show…and my undercoat of gloss black had several…

The nose was masked, leaving the black enamel exposed to be painted in gloss dark blue Humbrol enamel. Very carefully I painted the blue nose, the spinner and the oversprayed base of the propellers.

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After removing the masking tape, I applied the numbers on the rudder and the nose.  Then I realized I had not left the black ID strips on, so I had to mask the area and give a new coat of black to make them.

All the decals where applied and once dry, I very carefully masked the area around the blue nose, black stripes and red rudder and gave them a coat of matt varnish.  

Finally, all the little details were added. For the position lights, I mixed Future and a small drop of red/yellow or blue acrylic paint. I am very happy with the new “clear” colors. 

As a side note, only some days ago I received an email from Joe telling me that I have glued the lading gear doors backwards. I will have to fix them soon!

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Conclusion:

I am not a fan of the Mustang (Hurries, Spits, 109s and 190s but over all Argentine Skyhawks and Mirages), but the story behind the plane and the pilot, plus the encounter with Otto and kindness of Joe and Sam deserved a model.  Hope you find it interesting and read about the exploits of the Preddy Brothers.

Pablo

Photos and text © by Pablo Calcaterra