Dpgsbody55

Coming along well, Tim. I like the printed parts too. Very neat. Cheers, Michael

Nice job, Brad. Cheers, Michael

Very nice, Gazzas. Another unusual Russian front camo and well done too. Cheers, Michael

Thanks Larry. BTW, that's a terrific Tempest build, and the addition of the engine and your work on that is great. I saw Quang's build, but as presently on the forum, it doesn't mention the actual length. Three sixteenths does sound familiar, as I remember all the discussion about this when the kit was released. I'm still humming and harring about chopping my kit up, so we'll see as I progress. At the moment, the build is more or less stalled as I'm waiting on some supplies sent from Melbourne on 11th Feb and still not arrived. This order includes some fine drill bits needed as I broke mine over two evenings and I can't finish the engine, instrument panel and cockpit sides without them. Tomorrow, please, postal pixies?? Cheers, Michael

That's excellent . I like your stand, too. It must have been very breezy flying one of those, but they were a very effective little aircraft. Cheers, Michael

Update time, except that this update is a "take 2", as the hour I spent writing one last night got lost when I tried to post it. More work has been done on the instrument panel, none on the engine thanks to broken fine drill bits (of which new ones are in the mail), a bit more work on the fuselage halves, partial wing assembly, and at long last, some painting. I'll begin with the further enhancements to the instrument panel, and in particular the Eduard photo etch I'm adding. This includes switches for the IP, which I eventually abandoned after much swearing and cursing. I have neither the talent, the patience nor the eyes for details that small. You'll see what I mean in these pics, starting with the instruction leaflet, which isn't drawn to scale . And these are the actual switches, which the pencil points at. In the end, I reamed out the holes with a 0.3mm drill bit and used wire of that size glued in place, then trimmed. You can barely see it, but here it is at present. There's not a lot of work left to do on this, but I won't do any more for fear of knocking off the parts before gluing it in place. Once I'm ready to attach the assembly, I'll finish it off then. Next I started work on the cockpit doors. As with my Typhoon build, I've made hinges for them. This will simplify masking, keep dust out of the cockpit, and reduce the chances of them being knocked off accidentally if I were to glue them in place. Dusting models can be a precarious business . I started with a length of 1.0mm brass tube and inserted a length of 0.45 brass rod then bent the rod into D hinges at each end. Gluing this in place only gunked up the hinge so after soaking it in some acetone, I mounted the hinge in U stock then glued that into the model. Grooves were filed into the doors after removing all the detail in the plastic, as this would be replaced with Eduard etch pieces. The etch was "adjusted" to allow for the D hinge then some percussive perssuassion to fix my adjustments. Lastly, I glued the etch to the inner door and quickly pushed this into place. Here's the results. In the next pic, you can also see the hole drilled for the crank handle for the inertia starter. This is reasonably unobtrussive, and hasn't interferred with the mounting of other parts yet to go in to each cockpit half. At long last, I was able to do some painting. I like to do as much airbrushing as I can in one go, as cleaning the airbrush usually takes longer than the actual painting. The wheel wells for the undercarriage were assembled, and the wings assembled. This gave me the opportunity to check the fit of each wing part to the fuselage before they're joined to the fuselage as a whole, and make any adistments. I've left out the 30cal wing guns as P-39Q's didn't have them. They could be fitted with an externally mounted 50cal machine gun, but most of the pictures I've seen of VVS Airacobras show them without. Lastly, the cockpit floor has been completed and I've begun weathering. I painted the floor in rattle can aluminium, them airbrushed everything you see above, and more still on the sprues. When I went to scratch the floor, paint peeled off. I tried to fix this with a silver pen I have, but as you can see it looks naff. It's since been fixed with drybrushing of green and silver which looks a lot better. Next up is to start work on the seat belts which always make me feel , but they're a must in models of this size. I'll then install the seat, joystick, finish and install the instrument panel and do more work on the engine, then start on the guns up front. This plane packs a lot into the fuselage for a single engine fighter and I'm going very carefully in light of the experience here of others. So far, I have to say this is a well engineered kit, but the reality is that I've got a long way to go before I can close up the fuselage. One thing I have found is that each part needs very careful cleaning as you remove it from the sprue, then check the fit before gluing, including checking the fit as a whole in each half of the fuselage. Also, the plastic is soft, so if you file any bits, make sure that you remove any "fur" around the edges before test fitting. That's it for the moment. Cheers, Michael

Hi Dany Boy, Most of those profiles above are ex RAF Airacobra Mk 1's or P-400's. They're still in standard RAF camouflage of green/dark sea grey/light sea grey which became standard from about August 1941. I must hunt down a copy of that Airacobra Aces of WW2 as I have very little info on the P-39. I've also found a book dedicated solely to Russian front Airacobras and Kingcobras, so I might get that. I will be building mine Olive Drab/Neutral Grey USAAF colours as that was the standard colour scheme representative of VVS Airacobras, and the kit provides two options, one of which appears in the first profile you've provided with the Yak 9. But who knows? I might get another kit if this one turns out well. Very much enjoying this build at the moment. Cheers, Michael

Nice build. The three colour camouflage looks great too. Cheers, Michael

Thanks Dany Boy. That's a nice colour profile of the P-39 and Yak 9. I would love to have done a P-39 in Russian camouflage, but it seems that they were operated entirely with standard US paint (you can't call a single colour a camouflage), with only local respraying as needed. But hopefully we'll get other Russian planes in "our" scales. Cheers, Michael

Happy (not glad ) you've managed to recover from your accident. The model is looking great. It's reminding me that I need to get one and do a pre-war colour scheme. Cheers, Michael

Thanks Ray. Yes, I have spent some time looking through the various forums, and usually get different results despite using the same search criteria. Never mind. I'll keep looking and may yet find the answer. It will be a while before I have to make a definite decision anyway. Hi Quang. Yours was one of the first builds I saw and read it repeatedly. You mention a 2mm extension to the nose, but as far as I can see, not the measurement for the extension to the tail. Perhaps this was in one of the discussions about the kit elsewhere. Or I can't see for looking . Yes, it's a pity about the Photo*ucket pictures, especially as one or two are missing now. BTW, I remember following that build at the time. There's some wonderful detail in there, and some great tips for me. Glad to read that VVS P-39's didn't have the standard US radio as I would have gone a installed the kit radio. Cheers, Michael

Vampire??? I'll be getting one of these for sure. Perfect companion to my 2 Meteors, and an interesting looking plane as well. But there's others on the list that look good too. Cheers, Michael

I've been working on this for about 3 hours each day, and I don't feel like I've made much progress, but here it is anyway. I started out on the engine, and now have the basics together and painted. The picture below shows the engine, and the beginnings of the cockpit with the Eduard floor glued on. I've done a little more work on the engine since this picture was taken, and will soon have to start work on the spark plug harness as the lit piece doesn't connect to the magnetos or the plugs. There's also a coolant tube that attaches to the side of the engine, and that also connects to nothing, so I'll have to see if I can figure that out. You can also see the start of the etch brass seat and the rear wall of the cockpit. These later P-39Q's had a piece of armour steel as the pilot's head protection in place of armour glass, so I can only imaqine how noisy the cockpit might have been as the armour didn't seal against the cockpit frame. Next, I started work on the details that attach to the cockpit floor, and then attached the rear cockpit wall. This is now ready for painting. Here's the now complete pilot's etch brass seat, and the beginnings of the instrument panel. The seat has 14 pieces to it all up, and the instrument panel will have a lot more still when it's finished. I've also glued the front part of the fuselage to the main fuselage component so that each fuselage half can better act as a jig in the placement of all the interior components. I'll be adding lead to wherever I can to try to ensure that this won't sit on it's tail. This is one of the gun magazines now stuffed with lead from an old tire weight that sacrificed itself to this build. I've hammered it flat so that I can cut bits off to fit inside parts like this. Hopefully I'll get to start some painting soon so that I can get on with the cockpit. I'm also still looking for in formation as to how much I may need to extend the rear fuselage as it appears too short. Trawling through the builds on this kit only tell me that it's short, but not by how much. I suspect it's somewhere about 3mm, but if I can't find out, I'll leave it alone. Cheers, Michael

An exceptional build. The whole thing is just a work of art. Well done, Michael

Quick question on the length of this kit. Reading some of the previous builds, there's been some mention of it being too short. Can anyone tell me precisely how much I'd need to lengthen the rear fuselage, if I choose to do so? Thanks, Michael