The latest from the North American Aircraft factory in Los Angeles, relocated from the south side of LAX to Encino.
Clyde East's "Li'l Margaret" might be the best-known recon Mustang, since he was the top-scoring F-6 ace, with 14 victories (according to Barret Tillman, it might be 20, since right at the end the Tac-recon commander in IX Tac Air Command informed pilots they would no longer receive credit for aerial victories because they weren't supposed to be diverting from their task of "eye in the sky.") East later flew 125 missions in the recon Mustang in Korea, then flew the "hairy" RF-101 missions over Cuba during the missile crisis, ending his AF career by taking "Task Force Alpha" - four RF-101Cs - to SEA in September 1964 after the "Battle of the Flying Fish," aka, the (alleged) Tonkin Gulf (non) Incident (I'm not kidding, in 2006 it was determined that the "lights in the water" that night were not NV PT boats, but the reflections of moonlight and lightning on an enormous school of flying fish that annually transits the Tonkin Gulf at that time - LBJ was the only guy who "got it right" even unknowingly, when he responded to news of the event saying "Those poor d - - n sailors were probably shooting at flying fish.") Anyway, the RF-101s were based at Don Muang in Thailand and spent six months flying over all SEA getting photos for target mapping. After which East retired.
While "Li'l Margaret" is well-known, it is not accurately known. In part, this may be due to the fact the only restored F-6D warbird is (inaccurately) marked as this airplane. It turns out East flew one of three F-6Ds that were modified to get rid of the big panoramic camera in the rear fuselage and put in an oblique position, giving similar views to what the original Mustang I and F-6A recon birds had used. I was fortunate before I proceeded with the new Eduard kit to do this, that I mentioned the coming project to my friend and Serious Mustang Researcher, Tom Ivie. He provided me with some photos (attached here) that show the modification.
So, the kit to use is the standard Eduard P-51D, using the "dash-10" dorsal fin. It's an easy conversion. I opened the lower side port that is molded in there, then cut a piece of sprue to make the streamlined fairing for the oblique position, then opened a port with a #11 X-acto tip.
One thing neither of us has been able to figure out is exactly where the camera went, since that port opens into the rear of the cockpit, which was normally filled with the fuselage gas tank. I think now that the tank had been removed since that much range wasn't needed in the spring of 1945 for battlefield reconnaissance. It's hard to tell from the one photo of the airplane taken after the war, where you see the usual stuff above the tank - the battery and radio. But as Eduard demonstrates, the frame they were on is not directly connected to the fuel tank, so it would have been possible to remove the tank and put a camera in. As Tom said "I should have thought to ask Clyde when he was still here." But from the outside, you can't tell so I just did the kit.
The NMF finish shows that, with enough practice, you can get a "standard of good" that works for multiple models.
One thing I discovered in my research to "de-fiddly" the kit is that if, instead of attaching the instrument panel and coaming after assembly of the fuselage - which can result in not getting it in deep enough to allow the windscreen to get a smooth fit - you attach it before bringing the fuselage halves together, you can put it in exactly the right position. So, doing that, and gluing part G-34 to the cockpit floor rather than the roof of the wheel well, results in a "fiddly-free" assembly of the two major sub-assemblies - wing and fuselage.
5 attached images. Click to enlarge.
