Tamiya 1/48 Lockheed P-38F Lightning

[Stew Dapple]

Hello gents  

 

Here's my first completion of 2025, a Christmas present from my Dad, the Tamiya P-38F Lightning, representing White 33 of the 39th Fighter Squadron based at Port Moresby, New Guinea in late 1942:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The kit has a bit of a reputation of being a lovely build and I'm pleased to say that reputation is well-deserved, there are some really nice engineering choices made so you get a nice easy build of a well-detailed kit. The majority of the parts fit just like Lego, things just click into place and if you are the sort of modeller who likes to get elbow-deep in putty and solve problems... well this may not be the kit for you There are various part options detailing the difference between the F and G variants and markings for a G are also included in the kit.

 

I didn't quite go OOB on it; I bought the Eduard T-Face mask set for the canopy (becaused I like them) and the Eduard resin wheel set (because I don't like trying to hide the central seam on diamond-tread tyres, and the detail on the Eduard wheels is really nice).

 

I painted the aicraft in Colourcoats US Olive Drab 41 over US Neutral Gray 43, with US Interior Green for the internals, US True Blue for the propeller spinners and AK Extreme Metal Matt Aluminium for the wheelbays, with the detail painting in various Vallejo and Citadel acrylics.

 

I used the kit transfers, I feel that in a way they are the weak spot of the kit, being a bit thick (I know, pot, kettle, black) and some of them were frankly rather strange (yes all right) - like the ones used to represent the cooling holes in the .50 cal barrels... however when all was varnished with AK Ultra Matte they look fine.

 

And finally, I got another outing for the Coastal Kits 'Japanese airfield' display background for the photos  

 

Thanks for your attention

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Rampenfest]

Beautiful job! Love how it came out, and also love the backdrop. 

[billn53]

Very nice! And, I gotta get me one of those backdrops. 🙂

[fubar57]

Very nice

[Doc D]

That is lovely, I have the kit and am looking forward to that build

[Pete1961]

Superbly done and nicely displayed.

[kapam]

Excellent work! 👏👏👏

I dare say this kit is the definitive P-38 in 1/48 scale right now.

Not sure what the popular choice in 1/72 would be. 🤔

 

[Keeff]

That is excellent .... and the backdrop really sets it off  

 

 

Keith ☺️ 

[georgeusa]

Great looking finished kit and the backdrop to show it off works to its advantage.  Just all around excellence.  Thanks for sharing.