After learning of the death of my childhood hero who I came to know, Chuck Yeager, I decided to do his famous P-51D, "Glamorous Glennis".

The Eduard "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" kit, Barracuda Studios decals.

The first thing I did was as much detail painting on the sprue as I could, then assembling each area.

Here is the cockpit and wheel well done.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.

I decided not to fill the panel lines in the wing, but to paint it in such a way to mimic the aluminum lacquer over the puttied wing. I used Tamiya Flat Aluminum XF-16 thinned 50-50 and misted onto the wing. When that was dry, I masked off with low tack drafting tape, then I painted the ID stripe area wwith Tamiya Gloss White X-2, then masked off that white area and applied Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black X-18 thinned 50-50 and misted on. When dry, I masked off the wing and horizontal stab ID stripes (drafting cape cut in 11/32" strips, 15 scale inches, roughly), then applied the Vallejo metallics. I painted the area of the fuel tanks on the lower wing with Vallejo Dull Aluminum, painted the rest of the model with Vallejo Aluminum, then masked off the area around the exhaust stacks and painted that with Vallejo Duraluminum. I painted the rudder white, then red.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

A very noble reason to build a model. Your paint work is spot on, Tom, and I can’t wait to see this one in headlines.

A very nice build done at speed of sound, Tom.
A great way to remember this hero.

Decals done.

A note on this airplane and Bud Anderson's "Old Crow." Both were originally delivered in NMF from the factory, then - like the rest of the 357th FG in the summer of 1944 - given an overall camouflage of RAF Dark Green and RAF Medium Sea Grey. That fall, a lot of the camouflage paint came off; some left the upper surfaces, some (like these two) removed all of it. I asked Bud Anderson about this and he said that when the paint was removed, they did not stencil the airplanes "our ground crews knew where everything went." So, if you do a 357th airplane with that history (check photos), you don't need to do more than the fueling and grounding points. However, if you do an airplane delivered later, that wasn't painted at the unit (such as Kit Carson's P-51K), then the stencils are there. Again, research is 75% of a model.

While there are decal sheets out there that do this airplane (early Aeromaster, a SuperScale sheet, both only available on eBay - others overseas I'm not aware of) the Barracuda Studios sheet is most accurate (other than the nose checkers don't fit - I used the nose checkers from the Chattanooga Choo-Choo sheet). Because it was done fairly recently, after She Who Won't Be Named Here had copyrighted everything "Yeager" she could, and enforced the copyrights, the name is done in multiple parts, with the instructions formally telling you how to do "an interesting fictional aircraft that can be modified." (Roy Sutherland having a very good sense of humor when dealing with the humorless)

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Glad you're building this. What a great tribute to a great American hero. Last of his kind. Looking forward to the completion.

@holzhamer - And while finishing two chapters of the coming new book. 🙂

Basically done on "break time."