Juan B

Hello, I read with great interest about your intentions to create some 1/32 scale decals for the P-38. Finally! I've been waiting for somebody (anybody) to creat some of the antastic nose art that some of these birds carried. Rather than list some of the a/c here are some great photographic references where great pics came be found: 475 FG, Kagero books, by Andre R Zbiegniewski- this soft cover book has some great pics of many of the most colorful Lightnings of any theater, including "Florida Cracker", "Lizzie V", "Putt Putt Maru" in various forms and "Miss Virginia". P-38 Lightning in WWII Color, Jeffrey L Ethel, Motorbooks International-The name says it all: too many a/c to mention but 2 stand out- "Old Rusty", "Hell's Angel" and 2 great in-flight color pics of my #1 P-38-YIPPEE! WWII Nose Art in Color, Jeffrey L Ethel, Motorbooks International- Not a lot of P-38 nose art but does have color pics of "Billy's Filly" and " California Cutie" Aces of the Southwest Pacific, Squadron/Signal publications, Gene Stafford- excellent b/w pics of a number of the a/c mentioned in previous messeges on this forum plus some good color profiles to boot. Hope this helps and I hope we see those decals soon! Buena suerte y fortuna!

Thanx to all for the comments and encouragement! Allow me to add my 2 cents worth as far as tweaking goes, this was from my first build of this kit: Major Offenses: -missing Pitot tube (I scratched mine from some airfoil styrene stock and a small hypo tube) -missing inner door retraction arms (scratched from brass wire and small round styrene stock) -incorrect wheel well (I left it as it was but will correct the next time) -Control stick looks more like a corncob on a pole and doesn't remotely look like a Mustang control stick! (Next time I'll steal one from hasegawa!) -Main landing gear, while accurate looking once assembled (carefully, and omit the springs!), inserts at the wrong angle and give the finished bird a distinct "stalky" look. -The main wheels are missing some rib detail on the hubs and (as has been posted elsewhere) the DS wheels themselves stretch when placed over the hubs leaving a gap all around. I sliced through the tire and very carefully cut tiny sections of tire until the gap disappeared, super glued the tire and sanded away. That worked pretty well if you don't look too hard! - No way to secure the prop in place other than by glueing. -Ill fitting interior, both the cockpit floor and the firewall are too narrow to fit. If you build with the engine compartment closed that doesn't really pose an issue, but the cockpit floor can be resolved with some styrene strip cemented in place along the floor sides and press on. These are what I found, I'm sure others can add to this list! On the other hand I found that while building the kit it was looking more and more like a P-51 and to tell the truth I actually enjoyed researching, correcting and assembling the kit and have another waiting in the wings! Dragon did a fine job of replicating the gunsight, instumnet panel and generally speaking the cockpit is fine as is except for the corncob control stick. I glues a piece of very thin wood veneer from a business card to the floor. What's needed (wish list): -Brass main landing gear legs -Resin wheels and tires ( The True Details set for the Hase P-51 are IMHO too thick and the hub detail is incorrect ) -A new prop, although I cannot say for certain that the prop is wrong, but after looking at the Mustang prop at War Eagle Air Museum in El Paso the kit blades look too thick, but again that is just the impression I have. Thanx for the input and I hope this helps!

Hello all, this is my first post on this august forum so please excuse my if I'm asking a previously asked question! Has anyone posted a tweak list for Dragon Mustang? I've already built 1 and will post a few pics of it when I get that posting priviledge but in the meantime I'd like to find out from other modelers what they did to make this kit more acceptable. I checked out other forums and used info from them to make improvements, such as fashioning a pitot tube and retraction arms for the inner doors (can't understand that one, locating holes are in place for them inside the wheel well roof) and covering the wings with Mr. Surfacer to cover the rivet holes. I also found the if you assemble the landing gear using the instructions and parts in the kit without paying attention you get 2 left-handed gears! Anyway, thanx for any info!