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P-61A Black Widow 1/48 from Monogram


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I welcome all on this site!
Seriously I began to get involved in modeling since 2009 and during that time have built about 80 models in the 48th and 72nd scale. The most interesting and high-quality (in my opinion), I want to show you. I hope it will be interesting.
The first thing I want to show you a model P-61 in 48th scale from Monogram. After all - P-61 is my favorite plane, and this model - one of the most difficult that I've gathered.
The model was built with the use of set of motors and propellers hoods and trunks from Vector, gun barrels from Quickboost and wheels from True details. It was also rescribed and hatches of foil were added. Decal were shared by one of my Russian colleagues. Model assembly required some effort, in part because the model was produced in the seventies, in part because of the design of the aircraft itself. For balance I had to add as much as 250 grams of lead.
For painting I used
acrylics from Akan, made the color modulation and preshading, soot was made by airbrush.
P-61a «MoonHappy» (Pacific, island of Saipan, 7th AF, Fall 1944 )served as the prototype for painting.

The first sortie Black Widow in the Pacific theater of operations took place June 24, 1944 with the Isley Field. June 30, the crew of the P-61A in the pilot 2nd Lt. Dale Haberman and radar operators Flight Officer Raymond Mooney detected on the radar screen of P-61A "Moonhappy" two aircraft. Mooney took about half an hour to determine the cost to hit a target position. The purpose was identified as Air Force bomber Japan Mitsubishi G4M Betty, accompanied by one fighter Mitsubishi A6M Zero. Haberman first approach has made hits in the left engine Betty. Betty later fell into the sea and exploded near Saipan. Escort fighter detect P-61A could not.


Of course the model is far from perfect, and now I'm building another model from Monogram, this time modification «B». And wait for a new model of the Great Wall, which comes from China.
I hope you enjoy the work.

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That's an excellent result! :thumbsup: I built this kit many years ago - when it was first released in fact. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, the kit has issues - but nothing that cannot be resolved, as you have ably shown. I particularly like the differing tones of Olive Drab on various panels. Very nicely done!

:welcome: to BM!

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Very nice other than a minor mis-step that can easily be fixed: "Moonhappy" didn't have the turret. Popping it off and replacing it with the circular plate should be pretty simple. Other than that, you have done some very good work in turning this old kit into a good-looking model.

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Thank you all for your feedbacks. Maybe I'll open topic process of building P-61B in Work In Progress.


Concerning the turret on Moonhappy - to my mind the turret was installed, as it was on the aircraft with the numbers 25526 and 25528. On all the photos of Moonhappy the place of turret installation is not visible.Byt may be I lack all available information. If you have such information - please share with me. I`ll intoduce changes and show photos.

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  • 1 month later...

Very nice. I notice that your canopy actually fits! When I built this kit I ended up having to expensively replace the tranparent bits with aftermarket parts! I also prefer the Olive Drab scheme. Well done.

F

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Hi Very nice work. I have nearly finished the same kit and aircraft. Mine will have the Saipan ferry tank in place and no drop tanks. I believe they were only fitted on the B. This is not a bad kit, its in fact very good with typical MG detail

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Excellent job - love those intake blanks, don't see them very often on WWII models.

Welcome to B'Modeller - enjoy your stay!

ATB

Rick

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Very nice work, Ivan. This is the first time i have seen the Vector resin add-ons to the finished model.

A suggestion for the next P-61: Try to remove the side bulge near the flat spots on the tyres. The tyres do distort on the surface but they don't bulge anywhere nearly as much as the resin ones depict.

I too have the Monogram P-61; i want to do mine as a Marine Corps F2T-1. One of these days.....

Thanks for posting!

david

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Hi Ivan

Really lovely job you have done on the widow. I imagine lots of people who have one of these in the stash will bring it up the pecking order after seeing yours.

Cheers Pat

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks for all the feedback! seadog When I was building this model I also ran into problems with installing canopy and I used to put a lot of putty to fit it.

t_87039a254d2b02aab749c537acc713a8.jpg

BushBrit66 First there was no drop tanks. I instaled them after a small repair of the model. As for me with them P-61 looks better.

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David

Now I am building another model P-61 from the Monogram and i use a complete set of add-ons from the Vector on it. I plan to open topic about building in " Work in Progress" in the near future.

Thanks for the advice with wheels. I agree, they look as if air came out of them.

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