Paraguayan Civil War P-38J Lightning

[Brad]

In 1947, civil war looked imminent in Paraguay. President Higinio Morinigo sensed rebellion in the air and thus decided to bolster his air arm, as this consisted mostly of WW2 unarmed training aircraft. Open Civil War broke out on March 7th 1947, by this time a dozen surplus P-38J's with mercenary pilots and ground crew recruited in the US were on their way. Most of the former Paraguayan air force sided with the Communist rebels, but the hastily repainted P-38's served pro government forces well, shooting down most of the rebellions aircraft, while carrying out bombing and strafing runs on insurgent positions. By August 20th the rebellion had been violently put down.

 

This kit is the old 1970's Revell mold. It's not a great model, I started it as just something to tinker on between projects and it had been sitting 95% complete for the last month. I did plan on doing a Cuban machine, but I decided against using a nice decal sheet on what is a pretty poor model. Thus, I made up this little story. The P-38 did not see action in the Paraguayan Civil War.

 

 

 

 

[RidgeRunner]

excellent! A Latin build that isn't mine! Very nice indeed, and brave to venture away from the stars and stripes with your Lightning ;).

 

and it's 1/72!

 

Martin

Edited December 18, 2017 by RidgeRunner

[stevej60]

Look's a great Lightning to me!

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

Interesting story and good looking build. 

[glatisant]

Excellent,and probably not a million miles from being an actuality,seeing that the CIA, Honduran AF and Dominican AF used them.

[John Masters]

Fun tale and a nice looking bird...

[Sun Ra]

nice one dude!