TP-51C "Betty Jane"
Back in 2015 I raided my piggy bank and treated myself to an hour's worth of aerobatics in The Collins Foundation's Mustang "Betty Jane". I have some T-6 time and I always wanted to fly a Mustang, and on that day my dream came true. Afterward I often thought about kit-bashing a B/C model into a TP-51 to represent Betty Jane and found a set of Draw Decals (#48-P-51-70 1:48) for Betty Jane. Then about 4 years ago a friend gave me an Accurate Miniatures P-51C kit, and I decided to do it. I started with cutting the rear fuselage back and scratch building a rear cockpit with a spare seat, dual controls, instrument panel with cover, roll-over structures, etc. Then I got into my spares box and found some old AM Mustang/A-36 canopies and modified one, tapering the top of one to conform to the taper of the rear cockpit and fuselage. Then I used photos of the real thing to get the various modern antennas right, made some wingtip lights with strobes, got rid if the gun ports and shell ejector chutes, and painted it with several shades of Alclad II. Then it was time to play with my camera and go flying!
Super
Very nice result of the real "Betty Jane", Chas @chasbunch
Some great in-flight pictures as well.
Great looking build Chas! Looks like the real thing
That turned out great, Chas.
Good idea. Your pics are very good. Are you pilot or passenger?
Excellent job and super result, Chas! Thanks for sharing your memories with us!
That’s really cool! I’ve been working on a conversion for the Tamiya…this is great motivation. Do you remember who you flew with? Got a lot of time in that old girl.
1 attached image. Click to enlarge.
Thanks, Jim. This was an experiment to see how it worked out, my intention was to do another with the Tamiya or now maybe the new Eduard kit. I don't remember who I flew with that day, and I forgot to bring my logbook.
What a wonderful build. Looks very realistic.
Great job, Chas!
Darn good resemblance to the real deal! Well done!