John1

Love the hydraulic lines in the gear bays, that's first class work!!

THIS is what sets Fundekals apart from the other aftermarket masses. These are seriously the best decals I've ever seen, both in the quality of the decals themselves and in the amazing detail packed into the instructions. As a bit of constructive criticism, the only thing I wish you could have added was maybe the upper wing national insignia with those multicolored ammo covers as part of the decal. I struggled with this on my F4U-1D build. I didn't think I could accurately cut away the national insignia so I could show the painted ammo covers. I ended up very light masking the applied decal so I could overpaint a single cover with grey but that's not an approach I'd recommend since if the decal tore when I removed the masking, it would be pretty catastrophic. Too bad, I really like the look of those wings with all the different colored ammo covers. On a related question - what's that white dot at the 5 o'clock position from the star on the Corsair above?

Ahh, but that's what they WANT you to think. All of us are playing checkers, while Tamiya is playing chess! I look forward to the new large scale P-38!

Regarding the new WNW lozenge, have they changed the decals themselves or just the printing? I've found that WNW decals are pretty thick and harder to work with than the aftermarket stuff I normally use (and yes, I follow their suggestion to use a hairdryer during application).

Was this displayed at the show? What’s in the case to the right? i would LOVE a Tamiya large scale P-38!

Told you I was slow. It's taken me this long just to post the obligatory box shot (which is even out of focus to boot). Here are all the bits I'll be using. The Pacific version of the Tamiya kit has a few extra bits that will come in handy for this kit. In looking inside the box, as with the F4U-1D I just completed, I'm in awe of the quality of this kit. The surface detail is truly amazing, the instructions are first rate and quite honestly, you could build a truly wonderful Mustang right out of the box. If anyone has yet to build one of Tamiya's recent 32nd scale aircraft, you really have to treat yourself. You won't regret it. All that being said, I decided to splurge on this project. I added the following resin from BarracudaCast: P-51D Cockpit Upgrade - this smallish set includes a superdetailed K-14 gunsight, control stick, throttle quadrant, battery (getting tossed since on the F-51D, the battery was moved from behind the pilot to inside the engine compartment), radio (I need to verify the type, hopefully it will be the same one used on "my" Mustang) and a few other small bits. P-51 Mustang Diamond Tread Tires - a very cheap upgrade. Fantastic quality and much better than the vinyl ones used in the kit. P-51 Instrument Panel - a nice mix of PE, resin, and instrument decals. Each instrument bezel is a separate PE piece. Gonna have hours of fun here! I'm not entirely convinced this set offers a marked improvement over the kit parts. I'll study them closely before making a final decision on using it. P-51D Mustang Cockpit Sidewalls - just what the label says. Looks to be a nice improvement over the kit parts and they include a late style radio controller which looks to be a nice fit for the one "my" F-51D would have had. For decals, I've got the aforementioned AIMS F-51 Korean War Mustang set. I'm not completely thrilled with this set. For one, they neglected to provide the spinner polka-dots for the RF-51D option, so the modeler is left with the very fiddly task of punching out decals or masking and painting a dozen or so dots on the curved surface of the spinner. They also only provide the teeth for the sharkmouths of two other subjects. The red mouth itself has to be masked and painted. Someone less of a PITA but not what I would have expected. Oh well, given it's the only set of large scale F-51D decals being offered, beggars can't be choosers. Lastly, I've got the Barracuda P-51 cockpit decal set. Approx 50 tiny decals that accurately represent every warning label and placard used on the real thing. I used these on "My Nel III", my F4U-1D Corsair project and I have to say - they make a huge difference. I really wish Barracuda would offer these for other models. Once you see how a cockpit looks with these installed, you don't want to go back to a sterile, unmarked cockpit again. Those decals went on surprisingly easy, they are highly recommended. Anyway, that's my big update for tonight. I'll be going on a nice cruise to my favorite island on the planet in the near future, once I get back, I'll start doing some actual work. Thanks for looking.

Good memories from waaaay back playing "Tornado" on PC that required a boot disk to run the game. Loved that game, graphics were as basic as you get but it really was immersive. Nice cold-war theme, quite appropriate for the day. Great fun toss bombing a load of 1,000 pounders at a Soviet airbase, desperately dropping flares and chaff while SAM's flew over your head. At some point, I flamed out on flight sims, the learning curve was too steep and if you didn't fly often, you had to pretty much start all over again. I still on occasion fly Rise of Flight, a really well done WW1 flight sim. These days, I mostly play Team Fortress 2 as a nice stress killer after the wife and kids have turned in for the night. Nothing like a mindless hour (or three) playing a first-person shooter to let you forget about a hard day at work.

No, it’s not.

What an odd reply.

I tend to agree. There have been a few threads with some really interesting, valuable content that got locked down due to a small number of offending posts. One that comes to mind was the 737 Max thread. Had a few actual airline pilots providing very insightful content and then the thread was locked. With regard to the site becoming a "knitting circle", if you look at another somewhat prominent modeling website, their traffic is probably a 10th of what it was 2-3 years ago. Part of the reason (not just my opinion but multiple other members as well) was due to heavy handed actions by the mods. All too often, threads that had a great deal of popularity were locked down due a few offending posts. Other times, members were just outright banned. It seemed that after a while, more than a few members, simply gave up and left for good. The end result is a "kinder, gentler" website that pretty much is a shell of it's former self. The general discussion forum might only get 2-3 posts per day now and many of the current posts are of the "Celebrity __ Has Passed Away" or "My Cat just Died". Not exactly engaging content that makes you want to keep coming back. I get that the mod's job is thankless and want to make it clear that all in all, they do very good work here. That being said, there is always room for improvement, right? Just my $0.02.

Just can't help yourself, can you? Are you that driven to get this thread locked? Everyone else has been playing together nicely except for you. I'm not a huge fan of the "worlds worst businessman" by any means but given how China has taken complete advantage of the US (and other nations) for decades, while various American administrations (on both sides of the spectrum) offered nothing but appeasement, many folks have suggested that this is the only way to to get China's attention and force them to make real changes to their trade policy. We'll see how it plays out, my expectation is that this "war" will be over shortly. Trump can't afford to have any real economic damage happening as we ramp up to the presidential elections. If nothing else, it's a good opportunity to buy some stocks that are taking a short term hit over this.

Antonio, thanks very much for posting all those pics. I'd seen a couple before but most are completely new to me. Now to see if Tamiya has the appropriate control in the cockpit for my chosen radio fit. Regards, John

Given that AIMS is the only decal outfit who provided Korean War F-51 decals, I'll be using this set: Question - I've never used their products before, curious what people think about their quality (in general or specifically this set if they've used it). Are they thin? Do they go down well and how do they react with setting solutions (microset / microsol)? Any bleed through of colors for white decals? This last is especially critical since (a bit disappointingly), AIMS only provides the white teeth for the sharkmouth. It's on the modeler to mask and paint the red mouth. I don't want to get that far and then find out the red bleeds through the white teeth. Thoughts?

Thanks Jari. I don't think I did a good job of explaining. I was curious about what color the was entire compartment aft of the pilot's armor was (ie - the area around the fuel tank and radios). Wondering if this would have been painted black as well as the cockpit itself. Regards, John

It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up. F. Bueller.