[1/72 - Northrop XP-61E & F-15 Reporter by A&A Models - F-15 box art & schemes - release in June 2024]

Hopefully the XP-61E will follow.

[Hasegawa/Rieth Creations 1/72 Martin P5M-1 Marlin]

This is a Martin P5M-1 Marlin converted from the venerable, i.e. old, Hasegawa P5M-2S kit using the Rieth Creations (@MRieth) 3D printed conversion. The P5M Marlin is an improved PBM Mariner with a longer finer fuselage to improve both aerodynamic and hydrodynamic performance and replacing the Wright R2600 engines with Write R3350 turbo compound ones. Other then the engine nacelles the PBM and P5M wings are the same The main visual differences between the -1 and the -2 are; replacing the conventional tail with a T tail to get the horizontal control surfaces out of the water spray, redesigning the bow to improve water handling and enlarging the left engine nacelle bomb bay to allow the carrying of larger ordnance. What you get with the conversion set is:

 

Note the inclusion of a more complete interior to replace the anemic Hasegawa one. What gets removed from the the Hasegawa kit is:

 

 

After all the cutting, gluing and sanding you get this:

 

The strange object on top of the vertical tail is a Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) that is part of the conversion of the P5M-1 to a P5M-1S. Since I was not doing a -1S it was removed*. Also note that the guns from the tail turret were usually removed.

 

The Hasegawa kit is your typical early '70s Hasegawa kit with generally good fit, raised panel lines and the above mentioned anemic interior details. The Rieth Creations conversion fit well but you have to be careful cutting the donor kit. The tail and the nacelle were pretty easy but cutting out the bow gave me problems. A cardboard template is provided for the rear portion and the instructions say to follow the Hasegawa chines for the front portion. I found that a bit more had to be removed to get a good fit. Also the coming of the cockpit needs to be trimmed but this is not mentioned in the instructions. As with many 3D printed parts the tail had wood grain like striations that are an artifact of the 3D printing process and needed to be sanded smooth. Decals are not provided and I made do with various letter and number sheets.

 

Total build time was 18 days.

 

Here is the -1 and the -2S together.

 

 

Next up is the MPM Republic XP-47H

 

Enjoy

 

* Actually I dropped the assembled kit and the MAD detector broke off but I was going to remove it anyway 

 

 

[Martin P5M-1 in Seaplane Gray?]

16 hours ago, MRieth said:

Wow, what a fast build. The set was delivered on Feb 7. Looking great.

I didn't start until April 4. I am going to repaint the nose. I should finish it by the end of the week and I will post a link to the RFI here 

Thanks

[Martin P5M-1 in Seaplane Gray?]

44 minutes ago, MRieth said:

Did you have any fit issues?

The rear fuselage fit well given the vagueness of my cutting along the panel line. I really liked the fit of the horizontal tail pieces to the rear fuselage pieces the vertical tail also fit well. The only issue was the wood grain like striations you get from the 3D printing process that required some sanding. The left nacelle fit perfectly. The bow required a lot of tweaking in the front. Again I attribute that to my cutting along the kit chine. I did not see any of the wood graining on the bow or nacelle. The interior fit was very good but required trimming of the cockpit coming. On the whole I am happy with the printed parts. What would really be nice would be some decals for a -1.

 

1 hour ago, MRieth said:

The nose may be Flat Seaplane Gray. If you compare the nose to rudder, they have the same sheen and color.

 

I am going to have to sleep on what I am going to do about the nose. 

 

1 hour ago, MRieth said:

I'm wondering if there may have been some extra plastic in the back of the engine as that is an ejector pin location if I remember correctly.

 

It's possible.

 

Thanks 

[Martin P5M-1 in Seaplane Gray?]

It should be completed this week. This is it with all the mods

 

and here it is today

 

 

I am planning on using the markings of the aircraft pictured on page 70 of the Ginter P5M book so I removed the MAD detector from the tail. Actually I had it removed for me when I dropped it and it broke off. The picture you have shows the nose radome in the body color. The picture on page 70 and this one

 

 

show it in a different lighter color. Having no other data to go on I decided to go with Radome Tan. It is not the white of the all Dark Sea Blue markings.

 

It looks like the engine mount of your left nacelle puts the engine a little forward of the Hasegawa engine mount 

Thanks

Howard

 

[Xotic-72 P-64, Odd Bobs AT-802, Sharkit XP-47J, Owl Nightfighters Updated 2-March-2024]

7 hours ago, busnproplinerfan said:

There is a conversion set for the XP-47 on evilbay. No. 285377034681 I bought a few parts from Fastrodney and they are quite good and price is decent. I'm not sure how it compares to Skarkit, I was going to get one but procrastinated and now he's gone.

I have the Fastrodney parts; a resin nose and spinner and a vac fuselage tunnel. I also have the Academy kit they are for and if worse comes to worse I will use them. But there are a lot of things missing like decals and the added transparency to the canopy. So a full kit would be better if I could come across one.

 

Thanks

Howard

 

[Sova-M 1/72 Pilatus U-28A Draco]

3 minutes ago, noelh said:

Probably the same colour. Gunship Grey/Gray. What's the FS?

36118 for the gunship gray and 36270 for the lighter gray.

 

Good luck with it.

Howard

 

[Xotic-72 P-64, Odd Bobs AT-802, Sharkit XP-47J, Owl Nightfighters Updated 2-March-2024]

Remove A-8 added XP-47J

[Sova-M 1/72 Pilatus U-28A Draco]

25 minutes ago, noelh said:

I don't have the kit but I'd like one

They are not hard to find. You can get them on Amazon or directly from the Modelsvit store https://www.modelsvit-eshop.com/search?q=u-28a for half the price.

 

Thanks

[Sova-M 1/72 Pilatus U-28A Draco]

Thanks

[Sova-M 1/72 Pilatus U-28A Draco]

This is the Sova-M 1/72 Pilatus U-28A (PC-12) Draco. It is the militarized PC-12 used by US Special Forces for Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR). This is my second Sova-M build. My first was their T-46 Eaglet trainer that was a truly awful kit with huge amounts of flash, poor fit, and bad right/left symmetry. I have to say that this was a huge improvement over that. There will still huge amounts of flash but the fit and right/left symmetry was much better. The only real fit issue was the wing to fuselage joint and the 3 piece wing. The wing was made up of a single lower wing and 2 upper wings with the lower wing fitting into recesses in the upper wings. Unfortunately the lower wing was much too thick to fit into the recesses and required a lot of sanding to get a flush fit. The wind screen transparency fit very will. The side windows not so much. 

 

Also included were decals containing a full set of stencils and one for the control panel, photo-etch for some exterior features and a set of window masks. The masks were of the vinyl  type that on the Eaglet neither fit the windows or stuck. In this case they did both. As I was building this I kept thinking how much they had improved the quality of their work since the T-46 came out. But then I checked the dates of release of the 2 and found that the U-28A was released in 2019 and the T-46 in 2022. I guess the war has had a substantial impacted on them.

 

I used AK Real Color RC244 Light Gunship Grey for the upper surfaces and RC249 Medium Grey for the bottom.

 

Total build time was 12 days

 

Next up will be a Martin P5M-1 (P-5A) using the Hasegawa kit and a Rieth Creations 3D printed conversion set.

 

Enjoy

 

 

[Martin P5M-1 in Seaplane Gray?]

8 hours ago, e8n2 said:

One sure way to tell the difference between GSB and Seaplane gray is if you can clearly see the blue in the national insignia

Great tip. Now that I know what to look for it is pretty obvious.

Thanks

 

[Martin P5M-1 in Seaplane Gray?]

I am planning on building a Martin P5M-1 Marlin using the Hasegawa kit and a -1 conversion set. I would like to finish it in Seaplane Gray but, I can not find any pictures or drawings of it in that color. There are many black & white pictures of it in an overall dark color but it is hard to tell if it is blue or gray. Even the few color pictures I have seen are ambiguous. I have the Monogram Navy color book and it indicates that after 1955 seaplanes should be in overall gray but the only pictures it has of the P5M are with the white tops. and I can't find when they transitioned to the white over gray. 

 

Does anyone have any good pictures or references that show it in overall gray?

 

Thanks 

[Wingnut International 1/72 Republic XP-72]

4 minutes ago, Toryu said:

Beautiful silver finish!

Several light coats of Alclad II Aluminum.

 

Thanks

 

[Wingnut International 1/72 Republic XP-72]

It turns out that he used to belong to the club I now belong to.

[Wingnut International 1/72 Republic XP-72]

This is the Wingnut International 1/72 Republic XP-72. The XP-72 was designed as a high speed interceptor with a fan cooled P&W R4360 replacing the R2800 and an Aero-Products contra rotating propeller. 100 were ordered but by this time there was a greater need for long range escort fighters, like the P-47N, than for a high speed interceptor and the order was cancelled.  

 

Wingnut International, not to be confused with Wingnut Wings, was a small resin company in the '90s run in the  buy our own @Amo Aero who literally wrote the book (Secrets of Expert Mold Making & Resin Casting)  on resin casting. As far as I can tell he only produced 1 other full kit and a couple conversions. Mine is marked 161 of 200. The resin was thick, very smooth, hard and flawlessly cast with no pin holes, bubbles  or any of the other issues with resin casting. Fit was very good. I used the extra interior parts from the Sword P-47N 2 in 1 kit. Quite a bit of resin needed to be ground away from the fuselage interior to get them to fit but they look good once in place.  I also used the wings, landing gear, and canopy (there was a vac canopy included)  from the Hasegawa P-47D Bubble top kit. The Hasegawa parts fit the resin fuselage perfectly. Decals were Scale-Master and despite their age were not yellowed and worked perfectly.

 

All told it was a pleasant 9 day build.

 

 

Next up in the Modelsvit Pilatus U-28A 

[Pegasus and Veeday Kits]

 

 

I just built the Pegasus XP-40Q which was a later boxed kit.

Fit was decent for the most part but it did need test fitting and some trimming. The only issue was that the decals did not age well and were not usable.

 

Freight Dog models has bought their molds and has been rereleasing some of the WW I kits. I don't know if they have made any improvements to them.

 

Good luck

Howard

 

 

[Pegasus 1/72 Curtiss XP-40Q]

3 hours ago, Toryu said:

I didn‘t know about this kit manufacturer.

Freight Dog Modelshttps://www.freightdogmodels.co.uk/  bought out Pegasus and has rereleased some of their WW I kits. But, not this one.

[Pegasus 1/72 Curtiss XP-40Q]

35 minutes ago, Toryu said:

Are the markings WHIF or did the sharkmouth exist?

It really did exist

 

I guess it was Curtiss PR trying to reclaim lost glory from the Flying Tigers' days

 

Thanks

[Pegasus 1/72 Curtiss XP-40Q]

This is the Pegasus 1/72 Curtiss XP-40Q. The Q was the end of the line for the P-40 and Curtiss' last attempt to improve the P-40's performance. It featured a cut down rear fuselage with a bubble canopy, the Allison  V-1710-121 engine with a 2 stage supercharger, wing mounted radiator intakes and a reduced nose intake. While it was the fastest and highest altitude P-40 it was still no match for the P-51 and P-47 and was never place into production.

 

I have built many Pegasus kits in the past, all of there WW I offerings, but this was the first one in a long time. For its day Pegasus made high quality limited run injection molded kits with white metal parts, injection molded canopies, and decals. This kit was first molded in 1992. Instruction were just an exploded diagram. The parts had no alignment pins or numbers. This kit had white metal propeller, spinner, landing gear, wing radiator intakes, and pitot tube. The cockpit interior detail was decent and better then you would have gotten on a Hasegawa kit of the same era. General fit was also decent with the exception of the wing to fuselage joint that required a lot of trimming and filling.  The wing radiator intakes were the main accuracy issue. They were too square, too large, had a divider in the middle and were backed with solid plastic. The divider was easy to remove and I have seen one build where 6mm brass tubing was squished and used but I did not have any 6mm tubing nor did the local hobby store so I used the kit ones and drilled out the opening. The decals were old and not usable. I had hoped to use the sharks mouth ones but while one was OK the other just flaked into too many pieced to try and reconstruct. The one that was OK also didn't want to stick. Luckily I found ones on a Caracal AD-1 Skyraider sheet that while not a perfect match were close enough. National markings came from a Fantasy Printshop sheet.

 

Total build times was 10 days.

 

Next up will the the Wingnut International (not to be confused with Wingnut Wings) 1/7 resin XP-72. I will also be using parts from the Hasegawa P-47D

 

Enjoy 

 

[Sword 1/72 Republic P-47N Thunderbolt]

10 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Now I know how to spot the N model from others.

Here it is next to the Tamiya P-47D for comparison.

[Sword 1/72 Republic P-47N Thunderbolt]

This is the Sword 1/72 P-47N Thunderbolt. The P-47N was a long range escort fighter version of the P-47 with the R-2800-57C engine and the CH-5 supercharger from the high speed P-47M, and with a new longer-span wet wing featuring squared-off wingtips. There was also a dorsal spine along the read fuselage to handle the additional torque of the more powerful engine. 

 

Sword kits can neatly be divided into 2 type; very nice ones like their T-28C Trojan, and lousy ones like this one. One review I read basically said "nothing fits". That is not quite true but everything needed a lot of dry fitting some amount of trimming. On the plus side it had a very nice interior with resin side panels, seat, engine, and wheel wells. There was also a pre-painter photo etch instrument panel and seat belts. The clear parts also fit well. Although unlike most kits where the wind screen sits on top of the fuselage in this case it is recessed into an opening in the fuselage. 

 

On the minus side there is the usual vague instruction; while there was the photo etch in the box there was absolutely no mention of it in the instruction and good luck figuring out how to apply the complex marking over the intercooler vents on the fuselage side. There were also the usual large connections between the sprues and the parts, and the ejection towers where place with total disregard to where they landed on the parts. And then there was the bad fit. This boxing was a '2 in 1" version with 2 complete kits enclosed. I could not figure out the rational  for this until I realized you needed one to practice on before you started on the real build. Exceptionally bad was the wing to fuselage joint. The wing is much thicker the the fuselage wing root. This means that if you line up the top of the wing flush you have a huge step at the bottom that I filled with epoxy putty.

 

The Sword decals worked very well and included a full set of stencils. I have had issues with Sword decals in the past to I also got the Kits World KW72083 P-47N sheet as a back up. I ended up using the squadron marks from it and they also worked very well. 

 

Total build time was 13 day including tearing apart the first fuselage to use its interior on the second fuselage .

 

Here it is next to the Tamiya P-47D Bubble Top for comparison.

 

Next up is the old Pegasus Curtiss XP-40Q.

Enjoy

 

 

 

[Xotic-72 P-64, Odd Bobs AT-802, Sharkit XP-47J, Owl Nightfighters Updated 2-March-2024]

I am looking for the following 1/72 kits

• Xotic-72 North American P-64
• Sharkit XP-47J
• Odd Bob's Air Tractor AT-802. The 2 seat version

Decals

• Owl Nightfighters 72003

 

Will pay reasonable price.

 

Thanks

[RS Models 1/72 North American P-51H Mustang]

This is the the RS Models 1/72 North American P-51H Mustang. The P-51H was the last production version of the Mustang. It used the new Packard-Merlin V-1650-9 engine, had a lengthened fuselage and a taller tailfin. It was too late to see any combat and spent most of its service life with ANG units. 

 

The RS kit is limited run with the usual limited run characteristics. The fit of the fuselage halves and the interior was excellent. The main fit issues were with the wings. The wheel wells was a separate part that was glued into the single piece lower wing. This need a bit of trimming before it allowed the upper wing to properly seat. Also the fuselage sides were wider than the assembled wing and also needed trimming. The tail wheel assembly was a bit fiddly with both plastic and resin parts. The canopy fit well and was clear. This boxing had decals for 4 aircraft, only one of which was in front line service and I chose that one from the 62nd FS as seen on page 63 of the Ginter P-51H book. The decals worked well for the most part with the film disappearing when dried. All told it was a pleasant 9 day build.

 

Next up is the Sword P-47N Thunderbolt

 

Enjoy.

[Anigrand 1/72 Bell XP-83]

3 minutes ago, Navy Bird said:

I have a real love/hate relationship with Anigrand. I've built several and binned several. For some subjects, though, they're the only game in town.

I think everyone that has dealt with them has the same feelings. My biggest issue is dealing with the overly deep, wide and rough panel lines.

 

Thanks