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Hi all! After a very brief hiatus, the next colourful bird has rolled out of the paint shop. As you can see, she is a Douglas A-26B Invader, or correctly a TB-26B, as she was when operated by the Fuerza Aerea Chilena (Chilean Air force). Depicted as “849”, the last Invader delivered to Chile, she was a target tug. Formerly she was operated by the 2nd Target Tow Squadron, United States Air Force from Mitchell Field. See: http://www.hempsteadplains.com/2ndtow.htm. The tail emblem is from that unit. These last two Invaders (848 and 849) ended their operational days with 8 Grupo at Antofagusta Air Base. “848” still exists as the base gate guard. The kit is the Italeri A-26B Invader (1/72). With this build my easy and obvious option was to build “848” as she is illustrated widely and you can find her on the net. However, I came across the image below. My interpretation of the image is that it was taken in Tucson. My only evidence for this is that the full image has an F-100 landing overhead. It was kindly supplied to me by Danilo Villaroel Canga . He is an expert on all things Chilean Air Force, having written books and he maintains a blog on the subject. He has been a great source of inspiration. This machine intrigued me and so I attempted to interpret the Black and white image below with a few others to get the colours and markings correct. She appeared to have retained some of the “Arctic Red” areas on the wings and tail and was then overpainted with the Dayglo areas. I haven’t seen any plan views of this so this is where I used my judgement. They may not be perfect but it is my best effort. I used some “modellers discretion” too, which I don’t like to do but I got to the end of the road with my research with some questions un-answered, particularly the colour of the pale areas on the nose, wing panels and rear fuselage. Danilo was sure it was yellow but I’ve gone for Dayglo/Fluorescent Red Orange. In construction terms the only real changes were the deletion of the turrets, the addition of the TT apparatus and the opening behind that from where the tow banner was dropped. An image of this is below: I have not been able to locate any images of the mechanism internally and as it is not visible I elected not to try and replicate it. So what did I do/use? Italeri A-26B Invader kit (1/72) Deleted the turrets and blanked the upper with plasticard. Built the TT apparatus and installed it underneath Blanked the nose gun ports Filed out the interior of the engine cowlings and added exhausts with half round Plastruct rod. Painted with Humbrol 27001 Aluminium Metalcote, 33 Black, 34 White, 189 Insignia Blue, 153 Insignia Red, 209 Fluorescent Red Orange (undercoated with white and yellow), 226 Interior green, and others. Varnished with Gloss and Mattcotes. Exhaust stains sprayed with very weak pale tan, brown and black. Decals came from the FCM Latin Invaders set although in the end I used almost nothing as I printed the Chilean “shield” (the sheet one has an incorrect blue), the unit badge, the serials (Amarillo). The white star on the rudder, stencilling and red lining came from the sheet. Antennas from Uschi Panel lined and dirtied with Flory Dirt and Sand, plus the use of Tamiya Weathering sticks. I hope she finds a friend out there..... Martin Adding more images:
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