John Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 What's the current thinking on the best 1/72 kit of an early, non-tail fillet, P-51D? Thanks, John 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck1945 Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 AFAIK, there are no non-fillet tail choices in 1/72, either need a conversion kit such as this or use a razor saw 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72modeler Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 (edited) To the best of my knowledge, there is no injected or resin 1/72 kit of a P-51D-5. It isn't hard to take a P-51D-10 or later kit and remove the dorsal fin fairing (DFF) and fill the area removed, You will need to use an early seat and possibly an early gunsight, depending upon the donor kit. IIRC Pavla and Obscureco made a resin conversion which had you remove the fuselage forward of the fin and graft on the resin section. I think both are OOP, but you can check auction sites or vendor tables at contests/swap meets. If you are a stickler for accuracy, go with the Airfix kit, as it is the only one in 1/72 scale that got the rear of the wheel bay/mainspar correct; if not, the Tamiya kit is excellent, other than the wheel bay, which has the rear wall angled to match the wheel bay opening, but it isn't all that difficult to correct. The D-5's might also have had fabric, rather than metal-skinned elevators. Oh yes, if using the Airfix kit, be aware they did not indicate the balance on the leading edge of the elevators- you just need to scribe it in; when you see it, you will know what to do. Hope this helps! Mike Pavla U-72-27 P-51D early tail (includes rear fuselage and fin, wheels, elevators, stabilizers, rudder, tailwheel and radiator dump doors) Obscureco OBS72014 early tail (includes rear fuselage and fin, stabilizers) Don't know why Airfix didn't engineer their 1/72 P-51D-10 with either a separate early fuselage or break the rear fuselage at the transport joint to make both versions possible. They did engineer their 1/48 kit to make both early and late versions . Edited February 20, 2020 by 72modeler corrected spelling 3 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 Excellent stuff, many thanks. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lasermonkey Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Having recently used the Pavla conversion on a Tamiya -D, I think I'd rather just hack the fillet off in future. It wasn't a great fit and the separate rudder was far too long. I didn't enjoy any stage of fitting it! Cheers, Mark. 6 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theplasticsurgeon Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Or you could do this - from my recent Airfix P51D build. Filleting the tail, Timstyle. First to mark out and show where to cut, then drill a hole to get a radius at the base, mine was 3mm - I'd try 6mm next time. followed by the actual cutting. This is what we look like now, preparing to do the seams. 14 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72modeler Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 Yep- that's what I was planning to do when making a D-5! Good job! Mike 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted February 20, 2020 Author Share Posted February 20, 2020 Nice work. I should be able to lay hands on an Airfix kit in the stash. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wince Posted February 20, 2020 Share Posted February 20, 2020 The old heller p-51 d had an optional fillet but I’m remembering a kit I built 27 years ago that wasn’t that great.... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e8n2 Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 The original Academy offering of the P-51D of nearly 30 years ago was a D-5 with no fillet and included a two piece affair that you would add to the tail if you wanted a later block D model. However, in an inexcusable, but now an easily corrected mistake, they had only 5 exhaust pipes on each side of the engine. No resin correction parts in the early 90s. It has since been replaced with the current, but still a bit long in the tooth version which has the correct number of exhaust pipes per side, but has the tail fillet panel. Later, Dave 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FinnAndersen Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 If you choose the Airfix, remember to correct the horizontal stabiliser/elevator that misses the elevator mass-balance tabs. /Finn 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Posted February 21, 2020 Author Share Posted February 21, 2020 12 hours ago, e8n2 said: The original Academy offering of the P-51D of nearly 30 years ago was a D-5 with no fillet and included a two piece affair that you would add to the tail if you wanted a later block D model. However, in an inexcusable, but now an easily corrected mistake, they had only 5 exhaust pipes on each side of the engine. No resin correction parts in the early 90s. It has since been replaced with the current, but still a bit long in the tooth version which has the correct number of exhaust pipes per side, but has the tail fillet panel. Later, Dave Actually that rings a bell - to the stash! 😀 John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72modeler Posted February 21, 2020 Share Posted February 21, 2020 7 minutes ago, John said: 7 minutes ago, John said: they had only 5 exhaust pipes on each side of the engine. Actually, I think it was seven stacks on each side- at least that's what my 1st release had! I vaguely recall we had some discussion and photos on RAAF Mustangs, I think they were, that looked like they had a 7-stack arrangement. Turned out to be some clever photoshopping, IIRC! Don't know what Academy was thinking! Mike 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
e8n2 Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 Found it! Went to Scalemates and found the instructions for the original Academy P-51D. Here's the link; https://www.scalemates.com/kits/academy-minicraft-1662-p-51d-mustang-north-american-wwii-fighter--135386 It clearly shows that it was a D-5 and that parts B11 and 12 were to add the fillet panel. Counting the exhaust pipes on the parts layout drawing it does appear to have 7 pipes on each side. Nowadays that should be easy to correct. At a contest last weekend I thought I saw one for sale for $5, but it was the new plastic. Drats! Did pick up a Matchbox Siskin IIIa though! Later, Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Work In Progress Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 (edited) 18 hours ago, 72modeler said: 18 hours ago, John said: 18 hours ago, John said: they had only 5 exhaust pipes on each side of the engine. Actually, I think it was seven stacks on each side- at least that's what my 1st release had! I vaguely recall we had some discussion and photos on RAAF Mustangs, I think they were, that looked like they had a 7-stack arrangement. Turned out to be some clever photoshopping, IIRC! Don't know what Academy was thinking! Mike It was seven on the Academy P-51D. Even less excusably Arsenal managed to think the same in the otherwise very nice 1/48 Hawker Hart they brought out last year Edited February 22, 2020 by Work In Progress 1 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dogsbody Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 I just did a trawl through my stack of old instruction sheets and found the one for that Academy P-51. I guess when I found out about the exhaust pipe mess up, I reduced for re-use and turfed the wings and fuselage. In hindsight, I should have kept it. Oh well! I've never been accused of being that bright. Chris 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VMA131Marine Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 Strictly speaking, the incidence of the horizontal stabiliser needs to be changed for the filletless tail too. Eduard has accommodated for this with different fuselages in their 1/48th kit. One presumes that when they get around to tooling up the 1/72nd scale kits they will do the same. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Work In Progress Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 Really? That's something I never knew. It surely can't be more than a degree or so 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silverkite Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 also depending on what you are after check the propeller as I remember reading something saying that two different types of propeller were in use and a third type appeared during late stages of after the war Luigi 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VMA131Marine Posted February 22, 2020 Share Posted February 22, 2020 31 minutes ago, Work In Progress said: Really? That's something I never knew. It surely can't be more than a degree or so The incidence appears to have been reduced by a couple of degrees after the fillet was introduced. This is from the August 2019 Eduard Info showing how they accommodated the change; you can see the panels are somewhat different as well: 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
72modeler Posted February 23, 2020 Share Posted February 23, 2020 4 hours ago, Silverkite said: also depending on what you are after check the propeller as I remember reading something saying that two different types of propeller were in use and a third type appeared during late stages of after the war Luigi Original prop was the Hamilton Standard with phenolic cuffs and rounded tips; P-51K's used the Aeroproducts cuffless prop with tapered blades and rounded tips; late production D's, I think beginning with the D-30, used a Hamilton Standard cuffless prop with squared tips. There is also one other version, almost always seen only on restored warbirds, and that is the Hamilton standard cuffed prop with the cuffs removed; it looks at first glance like the Aeroproducts prop, but the blade profile and tip shapes are not the same. Replacing damaged or deteriorating cuffs on a warbird is horribly expensive and with the more efficient radiators available nowadays, the cuffs aren't needed for additional cooling on the ground and low airspeeds like in WW2. Mike 1st link: HS cuffless, square tip 2nd link: Aeroproducts prop 3rd link: HS cuffed prop https://www.plane-encyclopedia.com/ww2/p-51-mustang/ http://www.mustangsmustangs.net/p-51/variants/p51k https://pixabay.com/photos/p51-mustang-p-51-aircraft-airplane-3674968/ 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jackson Duvalier Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 I'm arriving late to the party here, but I built a P-51D-5 using the empennage from an Academy P-51B grafted to an Academy P-51D fuselage. Very simple, very easy and clean modification, it doesn't really rise to the level of a "conversion." Saves much sanding and rescribing, at the cost of an Academy P-51B. Which isn't such a sacrifice; that kit's tail is reasonably accurate (unlike the nose, windscreen, wings...) Obscureco offer a resin re-pop of the Academy P-51B tail, costs about as much as a full Academy kit and you can't glue it with styrene cement and you won't get the quite useful cockpit bits. The Academy P-51D kit is crap, no way to sugar coat it. They did for some reason include radio gear that looks to be a good match for the very early -D models. If I had to do it again (and I plan to, I have decals for Henry Brown's Texas Hun Hunter) I'd start with the Tamiya kit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FinnAndersen Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 2 minutes ago, Jackson Duvalier said: I... If I had to do it again (and I plan to, I have decals for Henry Brown's Texas Hun Hunter) I'd start with the Tamiya kit. Also late to the party, but I'll second that opinion any time. /Finn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Russell Posted February 25, 2020 Share Posted February 25, 2020 8 minutes ago, Jackson Duvalier said: The Academy P-51D kit is crap, no way to sugar coat it. LOL - Yes I built one and was not happy. It ended up in the crusher. Irrelevant to this conversation but we did find a use for them ........... https://www.redroomodels.com/product/red-roo-dart-stang-1-72/ You only use the useful bits............ https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234923759-cac-dart-powered-mustang/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VMA131Marine Posted February 26, 2020 Share Posted February 26, 2020 8 hours ago, Jackson Duvalier said: The Academy P-51D kit is crap, no way to sugar coat it. They did for some reason include radio gear that looks to be a good match for the very early -D models. IIRC early issues of the Academy P-51D kit were powered by the very rare 14 cylinder Merlin; it had 7 exhaust stacks per side. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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