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Rafi Ben-Shahar
348 articles

Hasegawa 1/48 P-38J Lightning

September 20, 2024 · in Aviation · · 18 · 126

With all its short falls concerning mostly with fit issues, 's is very convincing.

Reader reactions:
15  Awesome 5  1 

7 additional images. Click to enlarge.


18 responses

  1. I used to know the pilot of this airplane. Carroll Anderson. Met him out on the pylons up at Reno in the 70s. He was a professional photographer - he's basically the guy who was responsible for there being so many photos of the 475th FG during their last year, since he took nearly all of them. Very nice guy. It was only those of us who were photographers and WW2 air enthusiasts who knew who he was. You could always tell a "new guy" at Reno; he'd see all of us hanging with Carroll and later ask "who is that guy?" Sometimes people answered the question. It was a way of figuring out who should become a member of the Unofficial Reno Air Races Photographer's Association.

    Anyway, beautiful work on the model. You don't see too many done with these kit markings because the sheet was't the best. I never figured out what people were going on about the Hasegawa P-38s being hard. I must have built ten of them back in the day and never had problem. I guess it was like building biplanes when I was a kid. Didn't know they were supposed to be hard, so I just did them.

    • Thank you Tom.
      Interesting to hear about Carroll Anderson. I guess that by comparison to single engine models, Hasegawa's P-38 is harder to build, but not a real challenge, as you indicated.

  2. Good job! I'd like to know more about how you tackled those spinners: paint or decals or both?

  3. Excellent Lighting, Rafi! NMF came really excellent!

  4. Good looking build! Thanks for sharing.

    Rod

  5. Very nice, and what a cool scheme. That's one I wasn't familiar with.

  6. You get a gold star for getting those awful decals to work and look good, Rafi! Well done.

  7. This Lightning looks excellent in this scheme, Rafi @blackmopane
    Great job.

  8. Nice result. Funny enough, the Hase P-38 was one of the earliest kits I built when I came back to the hobby 20+ years ago. I didn't know about all the flaws back then, but completing it would teach me a lot of skills I needed to progress in the hobby.

    It's still a decent kit, not the so easy to put together Tamiya (which I like a lot.)

  9. Great finish on this build Rafi. Very nice to look at.

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