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Quick SAAF Kittyhawk Questions


Steve N

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Hi all,

 

I happened to win Special Hobby's new 1/72 P-40K in a raffle last week, and was toying with building it as the Maj. D.B. Hauptfleisch's well-known EV421 (the decals I have say EW421, but apparently this is wrong.)  The aircraft was apparently a late E-model with the extended dorsal fillet, externally indistinguishable from a K.  Anyway, I had a couple of questions:

 

Would this aircraft have had a standard U.S. seat harness, or the British Sutton Harness.  Also, would it use the round- or square-backed seat (and would that seat be unpainted or the cockpit color?)

 

The kit decals have a very nice array of stencils, however would this aircraft have any?  I'm under the impression that the Middlestone/Dark Earth/Azure Blue camouflage was added in theater..would they have bothered to repaint the stencils?

 

Wheel wells: interior color or underside color?  Or interior color with Azure Blue overspray?

 

 

Thanks!

 

Steve

 

Edited by Steve N
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Steve,

 

I'm pretty sure @LDSModeller is your man for this query! IIRC, he answered basically the same seat harness question for me a while back- you might try a search for RNZAF P-40E for the discussions. Hope this helps- those Kiwi Kittyhawks are the bee's knees! (Darned if I can remember what he said- standard US or Sutton harness- now I'm gonna have to look it up myself!)

Mike

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Hi Steve,

 

We have been able to finalise the correct colours of the 7 Wing emblem on the nose of the aircraft after many interviews and searches.  We have finally found the description of the emblem in the 7 Wing War Diary and have come about a colourised version on the logbook cover of one of the pilots in the wing.  The correct colours for the map of Africa, was green with a thin black outline and then a wider yellow border around the full map.  The Springbok was in brown, white and black and was jumping to the nose on both sides of the emblem.  The colours represented the green and gold of the Springbok National Colours which was the the colours of the Union sports teams at the time.  The yellow was used as no gold paint was freely available.  You are correct, the aircraft was a Kittyhawk Mk IA with the fin fillet and was flown by Major Hauptfleish when he was the Officer Commanding 5 Squadron.  The code letters read DB@H on the left and DB@H on the right, as it was his personal initials.  This was not the  2 Squadron aircraft coded "H", which also had DB as their squadron code.  This aircraft was previously coded GL-C in 5 Squadron, before elected by the OC as his aircraft.  In all the ohter 2,4 and 5 Squadron aircraft the codes on the right hand side would have read, H@DB.

 

Regards,

Piet

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Thanks, Piet!  The decals I have (the old Aeromaster set) show the map of Africa as orange with a wide white border.  Looks like I'll have to figure out a way to revise the colors.

 

SN

 

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The shape of those decals were fairly correct.  Maybe try and use a thin brush with thin paint and paint over the map and outline part of the decal, trying to keep the antelope as is.  Slowly build up the colour density in a few thin layers.  Then apply the decal as is again.

 

Regards,

Piet.

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5 hours ago, Steve N said:

Looks like I'll have to figure out a way to revise the colors.

Or wait for the correct decals to come out from a prolific manufacturer. They had assistance from Piet above and from @Buz so they should be correct.

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2 minutes ago, Ed Russell said:

Or wait for the correct decals to come out from a prolific manufacturer. They had assistance from Piet above and from @Buz so they should be correct.

Any idea when these decals might materialize?

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As it referenced on their website I can say it is DK Decals sheet 72079. Artwork still being worked on.

 

It takes a lot of work to do the original artwork, then they have to wait for a slot in the printer's schedule etc etc.

 

 

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I know MAV decals has this set, but take care to get the new set with the green African continent instead of the red one. However, they still have the EW code.
Also, their older decals were somewhat 'pixely'. Don't know if this has improved in the new version.

https://www.mavdecals.co.za/product/saaf-p40-k-kittyhawk-mkiii-5sqn1943/

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Thanks for all the info, gents.  I did a bit of playing around with a tiny brush in an attempt to correct the Aeromaster Decals colors.  The result isn't perfect, but I think it's passable for 1/72 scale.  Judging by the few photos I've found of the artwork on real aircraft, the head of the springbok is all wrong, but I don't think I'll bother correcting it.  Photos show the silhouette of Africa and the border were sprayed on, with a soft border.  I don't plan to try to duplicate that either.  I can't figure out how to make the "insert image" function work, so here's a link.

 

https://imgur.com/Xr4aANm

Edited by Steve N
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15 hours ago, Hornet133 said:

Steve,

 

You did well, that looks good. Don't forget that the serial has to be corrected to EV421.

Oh, I know.  That should be an easy fix.  Fortunately the serial number is largely covered by the fuselage code letters.

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OK, so here's my more-or-less finished attempt to "fix" the Aeromaster decals.  It's no Renaissance masterpiece, but hopefully the closeup photo with flash makes it worse than it is.  Hopefully they'll look OK once applied to the model and weathered a bit.  I did a little bit of work on the springboks, but Aeromaster's interpretation is still all kinds of wrong.  They can't really be corrected without doing entirely new artwork.

 

5uWgSNL.jpg

 

Here's the real thing, which shows just how far afield the Aeromaster artwork is.

 

FUHqAoY.jpg

 

 

Edited by Steve N
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