A few days ago I was looking at this kit from Tamiya that I had in the stash. I've been itching to build a Tamiya Mustang for a long while now.

Believe it or not, I have never built a Tamiya Mustang. I have built quite a few Monogram and Accurate Miniatures Mustang kits, but have never built a Tamiya version. So after watching Chuck Villanueva's Korean War F-51 build progress, I was tempted even more. His is really looking great and was partially to blame for this next build of mine... Just teasing you Chuck, Thanks for the inspiration my friend.

Here's what I will be starting with. It will be a fairly box stock build. (Nothing fancy)

About a week ago I ran across this wonderful book that also comes with a set of decals for all of Major Preddy's P-51's planes, (which just so happens to be my all time favorite Mustang color scheme). The book appears to be well written, and covers all of his Mustangs and has a great write up on the pilot along with some killer photos that show a lot of little details that we modelers strive to find for accuracy...

Here's the decals and they really look even better in person.

I am looking forward to getting busy with this one ! But I also have a deadline to finish my 1/28 Revell Fokker Tri-plane... and a few 1/48 scale Hasegawa F6F's going on too...

Please stay tuned for updates, and possibly another build of the same plane, but in the larger 1/32 scale, using a Hasegawa Mustang that I also have stashed away.

it's always good to see a Mustang under construction.

These Tamiya kits just fell together very easy, you'll love it.
Enjoy!

PS: I have it's smaller brother in 1/72nd to build.
Cheers

Goering is supposed to have said that once he saw the red-nosed mustangs over Berlin, he knew the war was lost. But there's something about those blue noses...

I have complete confidence in you, Lou...

Thanks guys for the kind words.

Chuck,
Several years ago I picked up a set of Korean War decals from Aero Master. (Part #48-100).

This is a pretty cool set of decals as it has markings for a F9F-5 Panther, F-86 Sabre, F-80C "Shooting Star", Vought F4U-4, and lastly a F-51D named "Buckeye Blitz VI" from the 36th FBS, 8th FBW in Korea, 1950 This is the same markings as an option shown on the side of the kit box.

I'm planning on using this set on my 1/48 scale F-51 Tamiya kit (which just may end up migrating into this build too...) if the kit supplied decals don't work well. I plan on doing some research first though, just in case the manufacturer's got it a little wrong...

as I said earlier, your wonderful F-51 is what inspired this build log here. Thanks again my friend !

Thanks David. I like the Blue nosed Mustangs too... Years ago I built an old 1/48 Monogram kit and used the markings of "Petie 2nd" HO*M on it. I may end up posting a small article about it here soon, as it was the first plane I used bare metal foil on... Thanks for the vote of confidence my friend.

Hey Craig ! No buddy, this one doesn't have the pilot figure you mentioned... Sorry, but even if it did, my figure painting skills are not on par, so I probably wouldn't use it anyhow.

It is a good looking resin figure Craig. Very realistic. If I had one you could have it...

You are indeed building a gaggle of mustangs. I really like both of those blue diamond mustang schemes. I am building one of those myself as “Jackie“. If you mess anything up on the kids or with the details, let me know as I have a large amount of extra stuff for those kits. After I finish my 10 I’m not sure I’ll be onto mustangs for many years to come :-).