1/144 P-38F Texas Terror

[ajmm]

A P-38F I finished this afternoon. This is a Gashapon Japanese pre-painted kit which I stripped down, rebuilt and repainted. Very satisfying and the level of surface detail is fantastic - a beautifully-designed mould that captures the original aircraft's lines very well in my view, certainly much better than anything else in this scale. 

 

 

The aircraft is Capt. Jack Ilfrey's P-38F Texas Terror/The Mad Dash. I used the Kitsworld decals not the F-Toys decals which provide for the same aircraft (on a sidenote - Kitsworld decals are just beautiful to use). 

 

 

Ilfrey was the first P-38 ace in WW2 and he flew this aircraft in North Africa in late-1942. He had quite an adventurous time getting to North Africa, being forced to land in Portugal after engine troubles, but managed to escape internment when demonstrating to his gun-toting Portuguese guards how to start the Lightning's engines! 

 

 

I had to do a bit of filling and sanding of some of the joints between the nacelles and the wing, as well as some on the aircraft's nose, but nothing onerous. The aircraft tail-sits despite the small piece of metal that goes in the cockpit nacelle. I scratch built the mass balances on the tail, as well as the aerial under the nose and added a pitot which seems to have pinged off sometime while I was photographing it. I used pastels and prismacolour pencils to weather it. 

 

 

 

And with a teeny-tiny Stout Skycar II I finished this week as well…! 

 

 

Thanks, as ever, for looking!

[MartinSK]

Looks like the real P-38. I like the weathering. Fantastic job for that scale. Looks like 1/72.

Martin

[Reini78]

nice work on that midget!

[tonyot]

Very nice indeed,.....I recently built a model of the very same aircraft in 1/72nd scale in the MTO Group Build although it took quite a bit of research on my part to arrive at the correct markings! Yours looks superb.

Cheers

            Tony

[djos]

So many details on such small plane.....amazing

Great work

Regards Djordje

[ajmm]

3 hours ago, tonyot said:

Very nice indeed,.....I recently built a model of the very same aircraft in 1/72nd scale in the MTO Group Build although it took quite a bit of research on my part to arrive at the correct markings! Yours looks superb.

Cheers

            Tony

 

Thanks Tony! I couldn't get to the bottom of whether the skull and crossbones on the nose was white or yellow - did you suss that one out? Also various profiles had more of the spinners yellow. I just looked yours up - stunning work! I reckon my prop logos are rogue but if you promise not to tell...

 

Thank you everyone for your very kind comments!

[tonyot]

34 minutes ago, ajmm said:

 

Thanks Tony! I couldn't get to the bottom of whether the skull and crossbones on the nose was white or yellow - did you suss that one out? Also various profiles had more of the spinners yellow. I just looked yours up - stunning work! I reckon my prop logos are rogue but if you promise not to tell...

 

Thank you everyone for your very kind comments!

 

I bought Ilfrey`s book `Happy Jack`s Go Buggy' to use as reference on my model and the painting of `Texas Terror/The Mad Dash' on the cover shows the skull and crossbones on the nose to be yellow, along with the kill markings. The spinner yellow also appears to be quite a small area towards the rear which you have got pretty much down to a tee considering the small scale.  There are pics inside the book which support the yellow skull and crossbones and also the spinners,....here is the painting on the cover;

 

All the best,

                  Tony

PS- Thanks for your kind comments about my model,.....it was a bitch to build and very un Hasegawa like! 

Edited October 23, 2016 by tonyot

[polo1112]

Stunning result for such a tiny scale !!!

[Val]

Great work! Especially the chipping which looks perfectly in scale; a challenge at 1/144!