May I present... Col. Robin Olds P-38J Lightning, SCATII
On my Honeymoon last year I took with me 'Fighter Pilot', which was an incredible read, easily one of the best biographies I have read and decided that I would pay tribute to Col. Olds with either a P-51 or P-38, as I had already built an F-4 Phantom earlier that year. I decided it had to be the P-38 after a memorable passage in his book where he talks about downing an ME-109 in a glide, due to dropping the external tanks but forgetting to switch to the internals! With the aircraft chosen, that meant scouring for a decent kit and decals. After doing some research I settled on the Academy kit, but unfortunately in 1/72, was nowhere to be found and I thought that the project would probably not start. However at the tailend of last year I noticed a kit made by MPM on Hannants and took a gamble after the description said it was an Academy moulding. I found decals by Kits-World for SCAT II and when the postman delivered the goodies I nervously opened the MPM box... fortunately all was well and some crisp moulded plastic fell out with 'Academy' on the sprue! For those interested, the WIP thread is here:
It's been a labour of love completing one of my favourite aircraft of WW2. My last attempt at a P-38 was well over 20 years ago, where I built an Airfix Lightning. Hope you enjoy!