Both Louis Gardner ( @lgardner ) and me have been speaking about building a combo WIP of Mustangs in 1/48 ever since I got the super Royal Edition box of Eduard’s P-51D. That was early 2020!
The occasion finally rose when I purchased my third box of Eduard’s kit- in this case “The Might Eight Special Edition” combined with the fact that Louis finally got around to build a model made just so by that maker (see https://imodeler.com/2023/08/1-48-scale-eduard-fm-2-wilder-cat-kit-number-11175-uss-nehenta-bay-vc-8-august-5th-1945-lt-jg-oconnor/)

So naturally I’m already a bit ahead of him when it comes to work around the plastic since all my 3 boxes show different stages of build/paint, but I’m sure he’ll catch up fast 🙂

Louis will join in with 3 Mustangs also, but one each from different makers (Eduard+Airfix+Tamiya).
Good to see his insights for Pros and Cons of each kit!

So these are my boxes

As said earlier, the oldest box is the big Royal Edition that supplies two full models, but I’ll be doing only one

The Weekend box provides a D-25 model- this one here

which will be displayed in flight, meaning wheels-up.
Found a couple of pics of the actual aircraft
The decals will be the ones that come in the box but with a few sourced from the RE box, specifically the tail stripes that have been over painted on the aircraft by the time the photographs above were taken. These stripes are visible under the blue paint coat.

The last model comes from the “Might Eight” box, as I also mentioned earlier, and is also already well underway with cockpit almost finished

I’m using a decal option offered in the Royal Edition - this one
and I also found a very good pic of the real aircraft that provides excellent details for the weathering

On this last model I’m using a Brassin set that replaces what it is to me the weakest point of this kit

As you can see here it’s a drop fit part that tremendously enhances the radiator details of the kit
I’ll post later what comes in their Profipack editions for this area so you can see exactly how much better this area gets.

Here are some details of the wheel wells, one is full yellow ZC, and the other a mix between ZC and bare aluminium

The cockpit floors and radio stations are also very comprehensive in this kits

Followed Tom Cleaver advice about glueing this part to the floor before attaching it to the UC well

A finer paint of the pipes here is still to be done…

1 additional image. Click to enlarge.

Pedro L. Rocha (@holzhamer)
Wow ! You have done some INCREDIBLE work on your various Mustangs. I don't think my completed builds will even come close as to how nice yours are. You have dialed in your builds with all of the proper details and correct colors too. Very commendable ! Your choice of markings are also excellent.

This is going to be a hard act to follow... I hope your expectations from me are not as high as what you have set for yourself. I will try my best, and that's all I can do. You my friend have some serious skills.

I have been wanting to do this mutual Mustang build with you for a while now, but I didn't realize that three years have since elapsed since we started talking about doing this. Man, where did the time go ? It has flown by no pun intended.

I will be following your lead with these Eduard builds. I need to build mine up as you have, since I want to avoid the trouble places I have read about. Thank you for posting these pictures on how you are assembling yours. They will be very helpful to me.

Ironically I have never built ANY of the Mustangs made by Airfix, Eduard, or even Tamiya, so this will be another first for me. Now I have built the Eduard FM-2 Wildcat, I am definitely excited about getting going on the Eduard Mustang. Prior to this I was a bit leery of building anything from them. But their new tool kits will spoil you... and I'm looking forward to building a Tamiya Mustang as well. I have never built one of them either, and I have heard they are like comfort food for a model builder. They might not be as detailed or as accurate as the Eduard, but they don't have a bunch of parts and the fit is almost always spot on with anything from Tamiya.

I just finished up a 1/48 scale Airfix P-40, wearing very early pre war markings and in a bare metal scheme. Since I have never built an Airfix Mustang, I'm looking forward to building it too, especially if it is anything like their P-40 kits are. I only build aircraft in 1/48 and 1/32 scale now. I got rid of all my 1/72 scale stuff some years ago.

In the past I have built the old Monogram P-51D in 1/48 scale,(the one fro the mid 1970's with the removable engine panel and wing gun covers), and several of the nice Accurate Miniatures Mustangs. So this will be new territory for me in several aspects.

I'm looking forward to this.

Thank you for making it happen, and for posting pictures showing the way.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
I agree with you. Pedro has done some excellent work on his interior parts. I have a hard act to follow here !

I don't think that mine will look nearly as nice or be as detailed as his will. He is definitely on track with his builds.

I started building models when I was 8, but I didn't really start building things decently until later when I was a teenager. Prior to that I simply wanted to slam them together and play with them. I didn't paint anything and didn't care about gaps or anything like that. I quit building when I joined the Army at 18, so there was a 10 year span there if you want to count the very early beginnings. Then I got back into the hobby in 1995 and really started taking things serious a year or so later. So I have 28 years of experience on the second time around, for a total of 38 years. There are many people here on Imodeler who build things far better than I do. I'm always trying to learn new things.

That's an impressive start, Pedro @holzhamer
A very interesting topic, looking forward to all of them.
I was surprised by the original picture of the 556 and 599 having a double antenne, never saw this before. Is it also provided like that in the kit?

@lgardner
Louis, it will be great seeing you deal with 3 previously unbuilt model at once. I’m sure everyone will learn a bit about them from your experience along this WIP 😉
Now that your completed the FM model which one of those Ponies will you start first?
I bet if you do that NMF finish you got in the P-40 to your Mustangs they will look wonderful!

@fiveten
Spiros
Thanks mate, hope to see your comments and hints around here 😉

@johnb
Thank you John, look forward to your comments here too! Btw did you get my PM reply?
Those twin antenas (plus one located below the nose just ahead of undercarriage doors) are features used in the late war pacific Mustangs. Since I’m no expert on the subject Louis and others here in the forum can add more details to these. Cheers

Nice work @holzhamer. I'll be watching this build closely.

Attached is my take on one of your options - Dick Turner's "Short Fuse Sallee"

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

For some folks the journey of reading and finding the history of a individual aircraft through photos is apart of the modeling equation. Adding more resin detail to kits is an add bonus. There is one school of the thought that says, once you button everything up and you can't see it anymore why bother. However, those resin and now printed printed pieces for some of us are a road map on how a aircraft works (engineering). Answering some of the who, what and why questions that some us ask ourselves. Pedro, I really appreciate your efforts in documenting your builds they serve to educate and answer some the questions that a modeler faces building their own builds. Some strong work as always and your work is a good road map for anyone building a kit or a Mustang.

Thanks a lot for clarifying this antenna question, Louis @lgardner
Very interesting to know, and as said by Stephen @stephen-w-towle, all the details we are treated with these days in modelling raise a lot of who-what-why questions.

All of these builds should be fun, Louis (@lgardner) and Pedro (@holzhamer). Great info on the antennas, Louis. The search for information and photos on these planes is often almost as much fun as the build,.