Best P-38 in 1/72?

[stevehnz]

Thanks @Work In Progress & @72modeler, that sounds easy enough indeed, from memory, in @CedB's build there was no le landing light but a camera on the front of both underwing pylons, so only slight remedial action required. Let's go shopping.

Steve.

[Gazontipede]

I'd quite like to see something along the lines a modern mainstream kitting of the P-38F/G/H at some point.

Currently the options are a bit sparse with the RS kits having a rather fearsome reputation and the old Airfix & Hasegawa offerings very much being products of a previous era.

Fingers crossed.

 

[stevehnz]

A Hobby Boss P-38L kit came through the door today, the bearer of which was heard to remark, "you don't need anymore". Anymore what I wondered, its my first one of those. That aside, it looks like a nicely detailed kit & the alterations to take it back to a -J shouldn't present any issues, I hope.

Steve.

[top turret toddler]

When is Tamiya going to downscale their kit ?

[ckw]

4 hours ago, top turret toddler said:

When is Tamiya going to downscale their kit ?

Good question - I picked up a Dragon kit last year at a show, but have held off attempting it in the hopes of a 1/72 Tamiya. I can deal with bad fit, I can deal with aligning twin booms ... but based in my current headaches with the MPM Fw 189, I'd rather not deal with both at the same time.

 

Cheers,

 

Colin

[sroubos]

Took me a year to get from my last post here in March 19 to the finish line on my RS Models kit... RFI thread here for a summary of my issues with it.

 

 

Now that it's finally done Tamiya of course will decide to downscale their F. You can all thank for me that

[modelldoc]

P-38, there a a lot of versions, so look up, which one do you like best.

 

Here I start with the RS model:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/32499481457/in/photolist-RvSkzc-u2CD9o-JJYeLm-pY7gLX-onTCFL-gfn7iQ-anGHfR

 

This is the FROG / NOVO model:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/18396454986/in/photolist-RvSkzc-u2CD9o-JJYeLm-pY7gLX-onTCFL-gfn7iQ-anGHfR

 

Here we have the Airfix kit with a conversion for a F plane:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/14687569434/in/photolist-RvSkzc-u2CD9o-JJYeLm-pY7gLX-onTCFL-gfn7iQ-anGHfR

 

Later comes Dragon with the same version:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/10007901034/in/photolist-RvSkzc-u2CD9o-JJYeLm-pY7gLX-onTCFL-gfn7iQ-anGHfR

 

Here is another Dragon version:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/5323593637/in/photolist-u2CD9o-u2CD93-9BoMbY-97qNVc

 

And this was a very hard build from a Dragon kit:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/5651375984/in/photolist-u2CD9o-u2CD93-9BoMbY-97qNVc

 

At last there is Revell with a nightfighter:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/18396454966/in/photolist-u2CD9o-u2CD93-9BoMbY-97qNVc

 

Who is the favorite, I don't know, I like all.

 

modelldoc

[Wulfman]

Lashings of lovely Lightnings ! I like the Airfix F best.

 

Wulfman

[top turret toddler]

15 hours ago, Wulfman said:

Lashings of lovely Lightnings ! I like the Airfix F best.

 

Wulfman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLBlcFfVfno

 

[brewerjerry]

Hi

    I got one of these a while back

 

 

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-4521-lockheed-p-38-f-4a--157208#

 

 

cheers

    jerry

Edited April 4, 2020 by brewerjerry

[Phantome]

The lack of decent early P-38s is one of the most frustrating to me. Every new P-38 kit seems to be a H/L.

 

Hobby Boss would have nailed it if they had done early variants, even as an easy to assemble kit but no...

 

I'm not holding my breath for Tamiya to downsize. Perhaps Airfix might bless us with a modern version of their old classic (one of the first kits I ever built)

[72modeler]

11 hours ago, Phantome said:

I'm not holding my breath for Tamiya to downsize.

Tell me about it! Many years ago I read that Tamiya had made a statement to the effect that they planned to eventually downsize their 1/48 kits to 1/72 scale, but to date they have done this for very few of their 1/48 kits. We are still waiting for the He-219, P-51B, F4F-4, and F2A/Brewster 239/339! I think they will eventually downsize their P-38G/H, but they will most likely release whatever other versions of that kit they have planned before getting around to it.

 

I'm giving serious thought to using an Academy P-38J/L, cutting the booms forward of the coolant radiators, and grafting on the equivalent boom sections from one of the RS kits, then using the forward lower cowling, canopy,  and supercharger parts  correct for the early version from the RS kit. Haven't had time to see if the cross section of the booms and/or cowlings where the cuts will be made is the same, but as sure as I start whacking away on one of my Academy kits, Tamiya will release it in 1/72! I could also use the Hasegawa kit, which does offer the correct cowlings and canopy for the F/G/H, but has radiators only correct for the J/L and it has no detail at all in the wheel bays. I would hate to trash an Academy kit for basically almost all the same parts, as the only thing using the Hasegawa kit would save is having to graft on the early cowlings, but it's another way to go. Decisions, decisions!

Mike

Edited April 6, 2020 by 72modeler
corrected spelling

[Planebuilder62]

I have built the 1/72 Academy P-38 and it went together very well. I gave up 1/3 of the way with an RS models F-4, it did not fit together very well. I also started a Dragon P-38 and gave up 1/2 way, lining up the outer wings was too hard compared to the Academy set.

 

Hope that helps

regards Toby

[Jackson Duvalier]

17 hours ago, 72modeler said:

I'm giving serious thought to using an Academy P-38J/L

I wish they weren't so scarce these days!  I managed to obtain one as an MPM boxing but even those are hard to find now.

 

The Hobby Boss kit is acceptable and the Dragon kit isn't total crap but the Academy kit is so much better, even with the typical Academy cluck-ups.

 

Edited to add that I did some poking around and got a shiver of excitement when I saw an expensive new 1/72 P-38J from Platz.  Turns out it's a re-pop from the Dragon tooling.  Harrumph.  Thought I'd mention it so nobody gets taken.

Edited April 6, 2020 by Jackson Duvalier
Did some more research

[Phantome]

Academy kits tend to fluctuate in terms of availability. A few years ago there were hardly any F-84s and I remember jumping with joy when I nabbed one on eBay at a decent price. Right now there are like 3-4 of them at any given time (meanwhile, the previously easy to find Tamiya is scarce)

 

The other bit of good news is that if they re release it, it will likely be with nice Cartograf decals.

 

Patience

[Aardvark]

On 4/3/2020 at 12:39 PM, modelldoc said:

This is the FROG / NOVO model:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21603181@N08/18396454986/in/photolist-RvSkzc-u2CD9o-JJYeLm-pY7gLX-onTCFL-gfn7iQ-anGHfR

Review on Russian:

http://retromodels.ru/f182/

It is claimed that the FROG Lightning was geometrically accurate.  

 

Of course in my childhood it was building  that models.

  Since there was no name on the Soviet box,

we considered it “Rama” that is F.W. 189, because for us, Soviet children, everything that had a propeller and a twin-boom was F.W 189! 😁😁

 The situation was complicated when I got the P-61, which also had no name model on Soviet box

and also had twin-boom and, accordingly, was also F.W. 189 ????

😁😁

 But these two models were somehow very different 🤔😁.... was there really two such different F.W. 189 ??? 😁😁 Fortunately, the magazine "Modelist-Konstructor" saved the situation where there was, in article about Pe-3, a side view of the P-38.This made it possible to identify the no name  P-38 model as the P-38 ..... later, in a specialized book store for foreign language book "Druzhba (Friendship)" , I came across Polish brochures from the TBiU series that made it possible to identify the no name model P-61 as the P-61!  😁Then I already saw the original NOVO P-38 and P-61 box on model club, but this other story.

 

B.R.

Serge

Edited April 6, 2020 by Aardvark

[72modeler]

The Frog P-38J was a very nice kit for the day, and basically accurate. I made one years ago converted to an F-4 recon version. From what I recall:

• cockpit and rear decking behind the seat were basically bare and needed detailing
• raised panel lines; was a bear to re-scribe around those booms!
• coolant radiator inlets needed refining, and outlets needed to be opened up- if you did, then you had to put in  the radiator/oil cooler matrices
• undercart simplified and no detail in the wheel bays
• props very accurate in diameter and shape, but overly thick
• fit was actually very good- about the only filler I recall needing in any quantity was to fill the gun ports for the recon version
• external tanks OK in shape, but molded with the pylons attached and the reinforcement straps needed to be added
• fastener detail on the forward cowlings needed to be sanded down, as they were too proud of the surface
• landing gear was weak, but if the missing retract arms and other structures were added, then they were OK with the nose weight that you needed to fit
• superchargers were OK, but soft in detail compared to an Academy or Hasegawa kit.

It was really a pretty decent kit-hardest thing for me was boxing in the wheel bays and detailing them, as back in the late 70's l didn't have a clue what they were supposed to look like!  I wish I hadn't given mine away to a youngster in our neighborhood- it was really pretty with invasion stripes and PRU blue finish....had the last three of the serial in yellow on the forward cowlings, as I recall.

Mike

[Gmat]

The FROG P-38 has the short lived in real life Virginia Marie markings that was really nice. I kept a box for a long time for the box art and decals. 

[Wulfman]

Thank you Mr. Toddler, I’ve added it to my playlist.

 

Wulfman

[SoftScience]

I wouldn't hold my breath for a 1/72 lightning from Tamiya. Too many people want one, so they won't do it. Seems to be their M.O.

[TheRealMrEd]

I did a build of the Hobby Boss P-38L-5-0 HERE     a while back, and actually had to do a few simple mods to make it an accurate P-38L!  As was noted by others earlier, to make a "J" model would be pretty simple as far as my kit already did not have the "L" leading edge light, sanding/filling the underwing dive flaps, and correcting the cameras on the pylons part.  A tougher problem all around is my kit also lacked the side of the boom intakes as discussed in the article.

 

As far as what WAS there, the Hobby Boss kit builds up into a much better model than I anticipated!

 

 

A couple of the RS Models P-38E's build threads HERE

 

 

And another HERE

 

 

Kit problems/solutions are mentioned in the build threads.

 

Ed

 

[Shalako]

And what about the Heller Lightning? Is it any good?

[John]

8 minutes ago, Shalako said:

And what about the Heller Lightning? Is it any good?

It's more than likely the Airfix kit. I don't think they have ever had a mould of their own. 

John 

[Shalako]

19 minutes ago, John said:

It's more than likely the Airfix kit. I don't think they have ever had a mould of their own. 

John 

Cheers mate. Any 'intel' about how accurate this kit is or, the modifications it requires?

[Work In Progress]

The Heller kit is the 1972 Airfix kit, their second 1/72 P-38 kit. It is good on shape, not hugely detailed. It takes a little filling and filing here and there but only basic modelling skills to assemble. Main thing you have to do is sand off all the rivets and then it's fine, just add whatever level of detailing you find necessary. There is a straight-from-the-box build with good pictures here

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Work In Progress