Best P-38 in 1/72?

[Andre B]

Hello!

 

Just wonder wich is the best P-38 kit in 1/72 today? Academy, HobbyBoss?

 

It's seems that the P-38 is one of those rare kits being built compared to P-40, P-47 and P-51's...

 

Cheers / André

[72modeler]

Andre,

 

It might depend upon which version you want to build. In my opinion, for what it's worth, based on having the kits mentioned below and reading what others who have built them have  stated, here's what I suggest. Our P-38 resident fanatics will be along shortly for more definitive observations.

 

For an early P-38/F-4 from the P-38E to the P-38H, as well as the P322, I would go with any of the RS Model boxings- they are pretty accurate and detailed, but aren't the easiest models to build.

For a late P-38, the P-38J/L, I would go with the Academy kits. They are also very accurate and much easier to build than the RS Model kits

For the P-38M night fighter, there's the DML and Revell kits, both OOP, and both have fit issues, from what I have read; I have both kits, but have built neither; I was thinking I would use the P-38M parts from either one to convert one of my Academy P-38J's into an M. There was a pretty good discussion topic on this subject a while back here in BM- you might want to so a search for it, as it also pointed out the detail differences between a J and an L.

Hasegawa did a pretty nice P-38 several years ago that they included alternate parts for (canopies and cowling fronts) so that an early or late P-38 could be built, but the coolant radiators were only correct for a P-38J/L/M- the wheel bays were bare, the cockpit was very simple, and it had raised panel lines. Hope this helps.

Mike

[Chuck1945]

Airfix also did an earlier P-38, F I think. Fit was ok, festooned with raised rivets and representative of the detail levels at that time - early 70s or so. I’ve built the Hasegawa and Airfix kits, have the RS and Academy kits. I have never heard a good word about the RS kit’s buildability

[Andre B]

I have an old article from Fine Scale Modeller about the P-38 kits in 1/72. But that article was written long before the kits from Academy and HobbyBoss was made...

 

Cheers / André 

[theplasticsurgeon]

My P-38  Lightnings, with a few variations.

 

Ancient Airfix J

 

Newer Airfix F, built as a P332 Castrated Lightning.

 

Revell,  built as an F-5B photo-Lightning

 

Dragon Nightfighter (no fit issues),

 

Dragon Pathfinder (dreadful fit),

 

Hasegawa,

 

Matchbox.

[Work In Progress]

The early Airfix J is not fit for anything except nostalgia builds. The later Airfix F/G is a good shape and available veryt cheap second hand, and fine if you sand off the rivets.  The Hobby Boss is by far the easiest to build as the hard stuff is basically all one piece. My personal favourite is the Hasegawa, which builds easily, is not at all bad on detail, and can be picked up for a song on auction sites and at shows . I have several that I have picked up for £5 or so.

[stevehnz]

Its worth considering too that the Academy p-38J along with other worthy kits such as their P-51A  appear to be out of production just now & hard to come by so grab one when you see it if that's what you're after.

Steve.

[Johnson]

Hi André,

 

Many years ago I asked the same question in Hannant's north London shop. They recommended the Italeri P-38J kit (also made by Dragon I think?). This was so long ago it was before you could search for reviews on the internet. It made up quite nicely I recall, cannot remember having many problems, fit was good. I added cockpit detail and decals for James Morris's 'My Dad'. No idea how accurate it is but I thought it looked OK:

 

 

Doesn't seem to be made any more, but it does appear on eBay occasionally.

 

Others may be able to say more about it?

 

Good luck,

 

Charlie

[Andre B]

4 hours ago, Johnson said:

Hi André,

 

Many years ago I asked the same question in Hannant's north London shop. They recommended the Italeri P-38J kit (also made by Dragon I think?). This was so long ago it was before you could search for reviews on the internet. It made up quite nicely I recall, cannot remember having many problems, fit was good. I added cockpit detail and decals for James Morris's 'My Dad'. No idea how accurate it is but I thought it looked OK:

 

 

Doesn't seem to be made any more, but it does appear on eBay occasionally.

 

Others may be able to say more about it?

 

Good luck,

 

Charlie

Hello Charlie,

A good looking Italeri P-38! Nice to see. I knew about the Italeri/Dragon P-38 but as you say it's hard to find these days. And it is not one of the easyest to build either. 

 

The FSM article about the P-38 kits was the first review comparison I read. And it was before Internet and the HobbyBoss kit.

 

I made a question about the P-38 kits 2014 but since that it seems that rather few P-38 kits in 1/72 had been built.

 

My intention is to build a P-38 from the european theater based in UK...

 

Cheers / André

[72modeler]

Andre,

 

You might like looking at the 8th AF Little Friends website, a link to it is posted below. Click on Fighter Groups, then select a squadron, and you can see a list of all aircraft used by each squadron, with codes and serial number, as well as the assigned pilot or fate, in many instances. For example, if you select the 20th FG, you can see the P-38's and later on the P-51D's that they flew. You can do the same for any group in the 8th that flew Lightnings. The site is an excellent modeler's resource! Hope this helps!

Mike

 

http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/

[J.C. Bahr]

On 3/20/2019 at 10:39 PM, 72modeler said:

For a late P-38, the P-38J/L, I would go with the Academy kits. They are also very accurate

Not entirely true... Academy dropped the ball with the lower cowlings and made the intakes below the spinners too deep and throwing off the lower side profile.  Quickboost makes two alternative correction sets for this, but I suggest getting the latter of the two sets which has the entire cowling as one piece.  The early set was just the intake face and requires back-filling and re-shaping of the lower cowl profile to be accurate.  The latter set is a proper cut and replace option.

[Roman Schilhart]

21 hours ago, stevehnz said:

Its worth considering too that the Academy p-38J along with other worthy kits such as their P-51A  appear to be out of production just now & hard to come by so grab one when you see it if that's what you're after.

Steve.

Czech manuafcturer MPM re-boxed the Academy P-38J a few years ago: https://www.scalemates.com/kits/mpm-72003-p-38j-lightning--632386

 

3 hours ago, J.C. Bahr said:

Quickboost makes two alternative correction sets for this, but I suggest getting the latter of the two sets which has the entire cowling as one piece.  The early set was just the intake face and requires back-filling and re-shaping of the lower cowl profile to be accurate.  The latter set is a proper cut and replace option.

I agree that this set makes a vital difference to the original kit.

[warhawk]

On 3/21/2019 at 4:39 AM, 72modeler said:

there's the DML and Revell kits, both OOP, and both have fit issues, from what I have read; I have both kits, but have built neither

 

I remember building the Italeri/Dragon(DML) P-38J kit, and using "literally" tons of putty mating the twin booms to the wing. 

IIRC, the central (cockpit) nacelle/gondola looked too narrow to me when finished, but at the time I haven't had discovered the joys of frustrating over scale plans yet.

If someone has this model in finished state, please confirm or disprove this (I no longer do).

 

Reghards,

Aleksandar

Edited March 22, 2019 by warhawk

[stevehnz]

25 minutes ago, Roman Schilhart said:

Czech manuafcturer MPM re-boxed the Academy P-38J a few years ago:

Thanks Roman, unfortunately they seem to be a bit rare too, I think a Hobby Boss -L might be the best way to address this.

Steve.

[Andre B]

13 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Andre,

 

You might like looking at the 8th AF Little Friends website, a link to it is posted below. Click on Fighter Groups, then select a squadron, and you can see a list of all aircraft used by each squadron, with codes and serial number, as well as the assigned pilot or fate, in many instances. For example, if you select the 20th FG, you can see the P-38's and later on the P-51D's that they flew. You can do the same for any group in the 8th that flew Lightnings. The site is an excellent modeler's resource! Hope this helps!

Mike

 

http://www.littlefriends.co.uk/

 

Hello,

 

Thats exactly what I had in mind as I am mostly an P-51D builder and have built several Mustang's from the 8th AF with Swedish connections. Many of them ended up in Sweden during the war and after the war. And one of them was an P-51D named "The Millie G".

 

And that aircraft was flewn by the well known P-51D pilot Edward Giller (who flew the famous "The Millie G" made by Revell in "red") who also flew P-38. So for sure one of those P-38J's from 8th AF would be fun to build!

 

Giller served as a P-38J Lightning and P-51D Mustang fighter pilot with the 343d Fighter Squadron, 55th Fighter Group. His P-38 and all four of his Mustangs were named "The Millie G", for his wife, airline stewardess Mildred, and coded 'CY-G'. He served as commanding officer of the 343d, and later, as deputy commander of the 55th. He had three confirmed kills, including a Me 262 over Munich on 9 April 1945. Giller also had six credited ground kills and two damaged. He was wounded when his cockpit was hit by flak over Munich on 16 April 1945 – he flew two hours to the UK with one arm.

 

So what about an P-38J named 'The Millie G"?

 

Cheers / André

 

Edited March 22, 2019 by Andre B

[72modeler]

11 hours ago, J.C. Bahr said:

Not entirely true... Academy dropped the ball with the lower cowlings and made the intakes below the spinners too deep and throwing off the lower side profile.  Quickboost makes two alternative correction sets for this, but I suggest getting the latter of the two sets which has the entire cowling as one piece.  The early set was just the intake face and requires back-filling and re-shaping of the lower cowl profile to be accurate.  The latter set is a proper cut and replace option.

Thanks, JC-

 

I forgot to mention that little tidbit! I have both Quickboost sets- the one with just the lip and the other with the complete cowling, and they do make a big difference in the look of the nacelles. I didn't bring this up because I wasn't sure what kit/s Andre was going to use for his modeling project. Plus, I have four of the Hasegawa kits lying around that could donate their forward cowlings, as the ones for the J/L option are very good. (But I did manage to snag three Academy kits back when they were available and cheap!)  I am saving one of my Hasegawa kits for an F5B or C conversion. (If only Tamiya would consider doing Lightnings- can't you just see the detail parts and fit engineering?) I appreciate your mentioning the cowling issue  for Andre, as I didn't think of it!

 

Like many of you, I also have the DML/Dragon J and M kits, but heard so many horror stories regarding the awful fit, they have stayed in their little cardboard coffins...probably will use the 'M' parts to convert the Academy J into a P-38M at some point. (Did you know there are two original P-38M's that are airworthy? Both were converted back to single-seat configuration, unfortunately!)

 

I have posted a link below for you, Andre, and any others interested in the P-38 that lists almost all of the surviving Lightnings- a lot more than there used to be; I can remember watching the late Lefty Gardner's P-38 when she was one of the original Confederate Air Force fighters back in the sixties in the original red, white, and blue scheme! Definitely three bullets on a knife, as they were once described.

Mike

 

http://p38assn.org/surviving.htm

[J.C. Bahr]

On 3/22/2019 at 11:53 AM, 72modeler said:

probably will use the 'M' parts to convert the Academy J into a P-38M

Another option would be to use the M parts that were in one of the Revell of Germany issues of the Lightning.

 

Funny that you mention the flyable M-models... I seem to recall somewhere seeing one that I think was CAF and was to replace their first Lightning called "Scatterbrain Kid" which had crashed... it was in a two-tone sand/green camo like the first one, still had it's second seat behind the cockpit and for some odd reason I'm thinking it had the big bulbous glass nose that looked like it came off an AT-11 Kansan.  Was definitely one weird setup.

[Work In Progress]

That was Scatterbrain Kid II, originally 42-104088. It wasn't really a P-38M, it was built as a J and at various times fitted with all kinds of configurations including an M rear cupola. The nose was a civilian modification for post-war survey purposes.

 

Now in a long-term resto programme for the Flying Heritage Collection in Washington State

http://www.westpacrestorations.com/index.php?page=p-38-lightening

Edited March 29, 2019 by Work In Progress

[sroubos]

Building the RS F now and I suppose it's pretty much the best game in town but it is one hell of a job. Filler required everywhere and the boom alignment requires some cutting to get it right, which I didn't, so then again, maybe it didn't require cutting... Anyway, it's getting to the painting stage and it comes with some nice decal options so I'm still enjoying the build.

[Andre B]

19 hours ago, sroubos said:

Building the RS F now and I suppose it's pretty much the best game in town but it is one hell of a job. Filler required everywhere and the boom alignment requires some cutting to get it right, which I didn't, so then again, maybe it didn't require cutting... Anyway, it's getting to the painting stage and it comes with some nice decal options so I'm still enjoying the build.

RS F?

 

/André

[Chuck1945]

3 hours ago, Andre B said:

RS F?

 

/André

Presumably the RS kit of the P-38F

[sroubos]

Sorry yes the F boxing of RSs P-38 kit. I think they also do a G and an H.

[stevehnz]

As an aside, but also relevant, given the non availability of many P-38 kits, what need to be done to back date a Hobby Boss -L to a -J?

Steve.

[Work In Progress]

I don't have the kit in front of me but in terms of the full-size the visual difference is really just a case of scrape off the dive flaps from underneath the wings.

Unless you are doing one of the last few J models, the P-38J-25-LO, in which case leave them on.

You may want to remove some pylons too.  I don't know offhand how the HB kit is configured but if it has the HVAR rocket pylons (it should) then leave them off (if they are glue-in) or cut them off if they are moulded in to the wing,

Edited April 1, 2019 by Work In Progress

[72modeler]

1 hour ago, stevehnz said:

As an aside, but also relevant, given the non availability of many P-38 kits, what need to be done to back date a Hobby Boss -L to a -J?

Steve.

To make a J from an L, you would need to remove the compressibility flaps under the outer wings;  remove the gun camera housing that is attached to the front of the LH drop tank/bomb pylon; fill the landing light in the leading edge of the LH wing and drill an opening under the same wing for a landing light, which was located outboard of the pitot tube; you will also need to remove the four blister fairings for the submerged fuel pumps fitted to the L but not the J. I don't have the Hobbyboss kit, so I don't know if these L features are on the kit. I have attached a link to a build/conversion of the 1/48 Monogram P-38L, but if you look at the build photos plus the photos of an actual P-38L, you will see the structures I am talking about. As conversions go, it's very simple, and the Hobbyboss kit might not even have the features unique to the L. Hope this helps!

Mike

 

https://www.largescaleplanes.com/reviews/review.php?rid=925