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Cadillac of the Sky - a few P-51 D made by two

Started by Pedro L. Rocha · 155 ≡ · ↻ 2 months ago · 1/48, Airfix, Eduard, P-51, Tamiya

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Louis Gardner said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

@holzhamer
Pedro L. Rocha
Stephen W Towle (@stephen-w-towle)
John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Thank you all for the kind words. Doing the research is almost as much fun as the actual building part for me. I try to learn as much as I can about the men and the machines they flew.

Today I made some progress. Over the past few days I have been trying to figure out which aircraft I would be building.

Many years ago I became friends with a WW2 P-47 pilot name Ed Malo. He flew with the 359th Fighter Squadron, 356th Fighter Group.

This is a good picture that Ed gave me of him sitting in the cockpit of his P-47. The other pilot he shared the plane with is looking into the cockpit. The other pilot's name was Airus Bergstrom. Ed flew 75 combat missions over Europe, and remained in the Air National Guard after the War. My wife delivered his mail, was friends with his wife, and this is how we met. We made several trips down to the aircraft restoration shop in New Smyrna Beach.

Ed flew mainly P-47's, but his unit transitioned into the P-51D in late 1944. I'm not sure if he had rotated back home to the States by this time or not. He flew Mustangs in the ANG for sure though. I believe he flew in the Massachusetts Air National Guard after the War was over. He also flew F-86 Sabre's. Ed flew a lot of ground attack missions and flew 4 times on D Day. He told me that most of his missions were of this sort. Ed had located some of his original gun camera footage, and had it converted into a VHS tape. He loaned it to me and I can tell you from watching it he was a gifted pilot, and an excellent marksman with 8 x .050 calibers. Now I wish I had a copy of it today. Hindsight is indeed 20 / 20.

He gave me an autographed artist lithograph that he had commissioned of his P-47D. Here is a smaller copy of the litho in the book he wrote about his wartime experiences. He explained flying the P-40 in advanced fighter school, and some other aircraft like the AT-6 Texan and PT-17 Stearman in this book.

I'll have to do some reading because he described all of his service, from basic training, through flight school and flying combat missions in the ETO. This is the book he wrote and gave me a copy of. Sadly Ed's tanks went dry over 10 years ago. He "flew West" and we never had the opportunity to talk again. I still miss our talks, he was a funny man and had a great sense of humor. He also told me that he owed his life to flying the P-47. He said the Mustang wouldn't take nearly the damage the Thunderbolt would. My Dad said the same thing about the Mustangs that were used in Korea.

I wanted to build a Mustang from his Group, and some years ago I started a build journal for a P-51D named "Jackie", flown by "Wild" Bill Crump. See where this is going ?

Some Years after the War was over, in the later 1960's, Bill Crump flew a P-51D at Reno named "Miss America". It is a BEAUTIFUL plane, painted in Red, White, and Blue. Luck would have it I have a model of this very Mustang... and as a kid, I had a flying scale .049 gas powered "U-Control" model made by the Cox company of this very same plane. I don't know what happened to it, as it "disappeared" when I was in the Army. I had left it home with most of my stuff when I joined. My younger brother never 'fessed up"...

Hmmm The gears are turning now.
Louis Gardner said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:
I have some 1/48 scale Airfix P-51D's in the stash. What caught my eye immediately was the Mustang from the 356th FG as a building option.

So today I cracked open the box and started cutting plastic. The Airfix kit is the first one going...

I might actually build the Revell "Miss America" too. It would look good sitting next to "Jackie" since it was flown by the same pilot, and many years apart.

Hasegawa had a special edition of this plane. It contained some metal wing tips, and a metal Aero Products propeller. From what I have read, the wings were clipped on Miss America at some point. I don't want to bother with that modification though. So I'll build it up as it was earlier on in the colorful paint scheme prior to shortening of the wings... even later they reduced the overall span of the horizontal stabilizer too... Nope, I'm not going there either... Maybe someday I will but not during this WIP.

I studied the "destructions" and figured out what parts I could glue together prior to painting. This shows the majority of the cockpit assembly. Please note the seat is not glued in place yet. It's only there to take the picture.

Speaking of the seat... I like it. It comes with a molded in cushion and harness. It should look fine once painted.
1. Diamond

2. Ribbed

3. tail wheel
Earlier I had painted the tires. This kit comes with two sets of mains. One is ribbed, and the other has a diamond pattern. The tail wheel is in the middle.

The fuselage was glued together. I picked out the appropriate fin. The kit has two different styles. So far the fit has been spot on, just like the P-40 was. I'm really liking this one.

I did some work on the wings too. The big parts were removed from the trees carefully and are now ready to glue together, once I paint the main gear wells in Yellow Zinc Chromate. These colors varied here, depending on when and where the plane was manufactured. I'm going with YZC on this one.

Speaking of the gear well. Here it is. It's comprised of two main parts and they fit together very well.

This is what it looks like when held in place. Here again, this is not glued in permanently yet.

I decided to go ahead and cover the inner clam shell gear doors now, while I have access to them. These would drop down after the engine was shut down. It took a little time for this to happen, and they would raise right back up immediately after the engine was started again. The landing flaps also dropped this way.

The inner doors were glued together... Now you see why I decided to cover them now instead of later.

They have some nice detail on the inside. I'm very impressed so far...

I have more to report, but I'll save it for the next installment. It's getting late here.

As always, comments are encouraged. Thanks for stopping by.
George R Blair Jr said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

The Airfix Mustang is a nice kit, Louis (@lgardner), and it will be a good platform for your foil magic. Looking forward to the rest.
David Odenwald said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

The VLR Mustangs of Iwo Jima.

Louis @lgardner has pretty much answered the mystery of the antennas but the Eduard Limited Edition kit of Iwo Jima Mustangs has a bit more information. The antenna mast under the nose is the re-positioned AN-104-A radio antenna. The SCR-695 IFF system was moved to above the fuselage tank. The displaced battery was moved inside the engine compartment, a small cooling scoop just forward of the left wing leading edge is the only visible sign of this new location. For all Eduard Mustangs with the fin filet check for this scoop as my F-6D kit has it molded in and thus it needs removing. And finally the little antennas on the tail are for the AN/APS-13 Tail Warning Radar that was to alert pilots if someone got on their six o'clock.

This Limited Edition has a few short falls. Eduard does not supply the new radio parts mounted to the deck behind the pilot but no one will really notice and instructions are for a standard -D install. Another problem is with the rockets. I have not built this kit yet but Eduard shows two different rocket layouts. The introduction explaining the VLR Mustangs even mentions because of the fitting of the Lockheed 165 gallon tanks limited the Mustangs to only six rockets. Page 10 Eduard tells you to drill out holes for TEN rockets, five per side; but on Page 14 they instruct you to install PE parts 60 and 61 in order to mount three rockets on each wing and then repeat on other wing. So builder beware.

Louis and Pedro, can't wait to see what you build.
Spiros Pendedekas said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

Another wonderful entry and ditto progress, my friend @lgardner!
Looking forward to it!
Also, amazing to read the facts of Mr Malo! As always, your research rocks!
John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

This is going to be an interesting project, Louis @lgardner
Looking forward to your approach.
Very nice reading about Ed, thanks for sharing your experience with that man.
Pedro L. Rocha said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

@lgardner
Great seeing you starting the Airfix kit Louis!
Looking at that pic that shows how Airfix approach to the interior parts around the cockpit it’s clear that they took a faster, simple route that combines the pilots office, the underside radiator and tail wheel area all in one go.
Eduard has that made in 3 sub sections, and the radiator really needs the Brassin to be up to the Airfix mode. It’s all probably more refined and detailed that what Airfix gives us, but at a extra price.
Good call on the inner gear doors!

I’ve puttied most of the panel lines on the upper wings of my Mustangs. Are you considering similar method on yours?

@kahu
David, thank you very much for the extra input regarding the Iwo Jima Mustangs. The rocket info is especially interesting to me, even though I’m not doing “The Boll Weevil” with them, I still have a fourth model where I’ll use them for sure.

I’m off all week due to work meetings but I’ll be posting a new instalment next weekend 😉
Tom Cleaver said 8 months, 2 weeks ago:

@lgardner: the reason there are two dorsal fins is because the early Mustang D-model the -5s that were back-ated and the -10, had a fin where the upper line of the dorsal extension is slightly curved, and the latter dorsal fin extension, which has a straight line to the top of the fin. This is something that was not dealt with by P-51 kits prior to the Airfix and Eduard kits.
Pedro L. Rocha said 8 months, 1 week ago:

A tiny update just to share the putty work made on the 3 pair of wings

I wonder how will they show, or better yet not show under a black spray.
Puttied those panel lines with Vallejo Putty and an overlay of Mr Surfacer 500.
Professional life has been very demanding and so my time around the project came to a near stop, but this will soon end. Cheers!
John vd Biggelaar said 8 months, 1 week ago:

Great work done, Pedro @holzhamer
Especially because you had to squeeze this in between all your professional life activities.
Pedro L. Rocha said 8 months, 1 week ago:

@johnb
John I wouldn’t call it great, more like tedious work to be honest 😂
Thanks for the support my friend
George R Blair Jr said 8 months, 1 week ago:

Wings will look suitably smooth, Pedro (@holzhamer). It's a real bummer when work interferes with model-time. Being retired has some perks. :o)
Tom Cleaver said 8 months, 1 week ago:

@holzhamer - the decals for "Short Fuse Sallee" all worked fine. You should have no problem if you have some Solvaset available for things like the nose decal.
Louis Gardner said 8 months, 1 week ago:
Pedro L. Rocha (@holzhamer)
The work you have done to the wings looks very good. The acid test will be when you paint them Black. That will show if any additional work will be needed. I understand the work obligations. There were almost 20 years worth of not being able to build anything, or when I did build, I didn't get to build as much as I would have liked to. Hopefully you will soon get more quality time at the work bench.

I too have been working on Mustang wings. I decided to go ahead and start a "Mustang Kindergarten" similar to how Erik does with his 109's. So I pulled all of the 1/48 scale Tamiya P-51D's from the stash and started them. I have all of the plastic parts cut and prepped for assembly or pre painting.

Here is a list of the Mustangs I have decided to build for our mutual builds.
1. Miss America
2. Bob Hoover's "Old Yella" Rockwell International Mustang in overall Yellow with Black trim
3. "Jackie" flown by "Wild Bill" Crump
4. Donald Duck plane with no name, using the Eduard decals you sent me
5. "Carol's Vergeltungswaffe" again using the Eduard decals you sent me.
6. "Starduster" from the 356th FG
7. "Thunderbird" a razor back Mustang owned by actor Jimmy Stewart. It's a Blue Metallic overall with Gold / Yellow trim.
These are going to be built using two Airfix kits, the Eduard P-51D5 Overtrees kit, and the remaining builds will be done using the old 1/48 Tamiya P-51D.

The rest of the Tamiya Mustangs will remain in the Kindergarten until I decide to finish building them. This way the majority of the basic building will be done. I also made some mods to the landing gear well in the Tamiya kit. I'll post up some pictures next showing what I did.

So please stay tuned. Thanks.

It's coming right up next.
Louis Gardner said 8 months, 1 week ago:

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Thank you ! I'm looking forward to using the combination of various foils and Molotow on these. I'll be painting the wings in an aluminum color though. I'm really liking these Airfix kits. In fact I started a second one to use for this little group we have here.

David Odenwald (@kahu)
Thank you for the additional information on the radio antennae's. Your detailed response is appreciated, and to me, that's like icing on the cake ! I didn't know about the little tail antennae's being part of an early warning system, but it makes perfect sense now. What you mentioned about the ten vs 6 underwing rockets is also good to hear about. If you have any more information of things to watch out for, please feel free to chime in. Thanks again !

Spiros Pendedekas (@fiveten)
Thank you for the kind words. Mr. Malo was a good man. I miss talking with him. Someday I want to build a model of his P-47 that he shared with Airus Bergstrom. Someday it will happen... Now there's a nice early razorback available on the market, it might be sooner than later. I have to look up the serial number of his plane to see exactly which model or version it was. I know it was a P-47D razorback, I just don't know which model it was... yet. Thanks again my friend for stopping by here.

John vd Biggelaar (@johnb)
Thanks John ! I sincerely appreciate your comments. I hope to keep you all interested with these builds. Lately I have not had as much building time as I would have like to have had. Maybe during this upcoming weekend I can do more.

Pedro L. Rocha (@holzhamer)
Yes sir, I really like this new Airfix Mustang... well it's new to me anyhow. 😉 How long have they been on the market now ? 5 or 6 years ? Something like that I guess, so it's about time I try one. I started another Airfix kit for our builds here. So far it has fit together just like the first one did. Very impressive.

I also tried to scratch build the open main landing gear wells on a Tamiya Mustang. I'm very happy with how it looks, and it wasn't all that hard to do. Then I cut the filleted tail section off a Tamiya P-51D, to use on a Tamiya P-51B "Razor back" to make the overall blue metallic plane owned by actor Jimmy Stewart. It for right on with minimal fuss.
I have an aftermarket resin replacement to make this "Tail Donor" Mustang into an early P-51D version without the fillet. The resin part was a drop in fit. Ultracast makes it. I purchased this right before Airfix announced they would be releasing this very same kit... go figure ! 🙂

I'll be posting up some pictures of this stuff next.

Tom Cleaver (@tcinla)
Thanks for stopping by. I looked at both of the Airfix tail inserts and the only thing I can see different between them is how they have scribed in the panel lines. They both look as if they have the same profile. I'll cut them off the trees and lay them over each other to see if there's any other physical differences. Could be, I'm just not seeing it yet, so it has to be minimal. I have read where North American made what they called "Field Kits", that were shipped to units that were using these early P-51D-5 Mustangs without the tail fillets. When they cut down the rear fuselages on the B model Razorback version, to make them a Bubble top. they lost some lateral stability because the sides of the fuselage acted as a supplement to the fin assembly. So they shipped these conversion kits out to units to be retro fitted to these early bubbletops that didn't have this feature.

Ironically, the exact same thing happened to the P-47D, when they went from the razorback to a bubble top... and you can see how they had a similar modification done to them later on in the War.

My friend (and former P-47 driver) Ed Malo was the first to tell me about this many years ago. He also told me that he actually preferred flying the razorback over the bubble tops... in both the P-47 and the P-51. He said the early Mustangs were the best as far as flying qualities, but nothing could compare to the 47 when it came to taking punishment and still coming home. He told me about a time when one of his flight members came home with 4 feet missing from his wing !

OK, enough talking... lets post some pictures !

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