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Twin Dragon - Lockheed P-38J Lightning - 1/72 - Kitbash Hasegawa/Dragon


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Lockheed P-38J-5-LO, 42-67291, “Haleakala”,

459th FS, 80th FG, USAAF, Chittagong, India, 1944

Pilot: Lt. H.H. Sealy

1/72 model built using parts of Hasegawa and Dragon kits (done before the Academy kit became available) with some scratch building/reshaping. The only correctly shaped drop tanks I could find were borrowed from the Frog/Novo kit.

Detail sets ( used completely or partially):

  • Aires P-38J/L cockpit set,
  • Eduard P-38J/L detail set,
  • Squadron P-38 F(due to the early style windscreen on J-5) vacu canopy
Decals:
  • Aeromaster (all individual a/c markings were inaccurate and had to be corrected or replaced)
  • Dragon/Italeri kit decals, Travers, Revell (P-51B) - for technical markings
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%23f02.JPG %23b01.JPG %23a01.JPG %23c04.JPG %23b06.JPG %23c05.JPG %23e01-2.jpg %23d01-2.jpg %23e03-2.jpg %23g01.JPG %23g02.JPG %23i03-2.jpg %23h02-2.jpg %23l02.JPG %23l03.JPG %23l04.JPG %23m01.JPG %23m03.JPG %23l08.JPG %23n01.JPG %23o02.JPG %23o01.JPG

Edited by Aesthete
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Aesthete,

What an absolutely fantastic finish. Like the super-detailing.

I hope you're happy with it.

regards,

Martin

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Thanks everyone for your comments! :worthy:

Having RS Models F-5A in the stash, I still believe, I wouldn't hold it against Airfix, if they decide to release a new tool early Lightning (of course, 1/72!) in foreseeable future... ;)

Edited by Aesthete
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Are the RS kits actually worth the silly price.....I've got Airfix and Hasegawa kits put by for a possible crude kit-bash early P-38, but something closer in quality to the Academy P-38J would be nice. :shrug:

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That looks really nice, I'll be happy to use this build as reference for the Hasegawa kit with these markings I have. I'm starting to wonder if there is something wrong with it that you had to do so much improvement. Any comments on that? Thanks.

Steve.

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Well it is not that easy...

Actually, the build was started as just DML kit, which looked, as usually, great in the box, being, however, far from perfect in terms of fit. Now it is hard to say, whether it was my fault (I think so) or really a serious flaw with the kit, but for some reason I ended up with an asymmetrical fuselage and all attemts to correct this failed miserably... ;-) In addition, I believe, the DML canopy and fuselage might also be a bit too narrow.

After this disaster I just bought the Hasegawa kit, which is certainly a better (and was probably the best before Academy became available) starting point. However, as the DML boom sub-assemblies with corrected (reshaped) radiator scoops and complete wheel wells (!) had already been done by that time, I had to graft them onto the Hasegawa fuselage/wing sub-assembly. The tail section is again from Hasegawa. Everything went OK with only some minor adjustment required.

The fuselage and nose section of the Hasegawa kit looked slightly wrong to me, so they were undertaken some moderate reshaping as well. The fuselage-to-wing joint around the canopy needed some improvement too. However, I am not sure if it would be neccessary (or worth it) with the Academy kit (assuming it is identical to Hasegawa shape-wise).

What would really be worth taken from the DML kit (probably even in case of building the Academy, at least if one is already in possession of Dragon kit) are superchargers (with surrounding panels - I just cut off a rectangle), wing fuel tank intake covers, engine cooler intakes, landing gear parts, propellers and some more minor detail, which I can't remember exactly. I also used wheel wells from DML, which, however, still had to be extensively modified, especially the main ones being just too narrow and therefore of limited use... Can't comment on the CMK set, but it may be a better choice nowadays. The wheels as DML kit parts were also the best I could find at that time, as both True Details and Hi Tech had some dimensional problems. Again, currently there may be some better options (e.g. Aires). Since the "Haleakala" had covered wheel hubs, the covers as discs made of thin metal foil were added.

Another modification required for this particular aircraft was the early style curved windscreen from the Squadron set, which had to be sanded (because of wrong, non-parallel framing) and then polished - went surprisingly OK even with the vacu part. The upper canopy part and the rear view mirror fairing were thermaformed using modified kit pieces as templates.

As already mentioned, the drop tanks of both kits (and it seems also to be the case with Academy) are not accurately shaped and I used the Novo kit as a donor.

The dragons were airbrushed using decals as templates and the individual markings were corrected according to the photo.

Edited by Aesthete
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Thanks for that very full explanation of the kit mods you've done, your finished model sure looks as though it is worth it. For myself & knowing my modest capabilties, I'm sure the Hasegawa kit will do the job though I'll happily use some of your pictures for guidance & inspiration. :)

Steve.

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Thanks for that very full explanation of the kit mods you've done, your finished model sure looks as though it is worth it. For myself & knowing my modest capabilties, I'm sure the Hasegawa kit will do the job though I'll happily use some of your pictures for guidance & inspiration. :)

Steve.

You are welcome, that would be an honour for me! :)

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every time I see pics like these of models like these one of two things happen...

either I feel inspired,

or,

those suicidal inclinations start to rear up again....

smart work.

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