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1 enormous box: …full of nice plastic stuff (beautiful clear parts), and… …more PE stuff than I will ever use, plus… …printed gun barrels (my first experience with parts made this way)… …all for building 1 of 5 different AVG subjects, and lastly… …a big-ass commemorative patch to sew on something. I can hardly wait to get started, but I’m going to be disciplined and finish the Revell P-51D first. No, really, I am. Seriously. Not kidding. Disciplined.

Feeling invincible (COMPLETELY tongue in cheek!) on the heels of finally completing my Tamiya Big Beautiful Doll I thought I'd drag out an old Dragon 1/32 P-51D kit, and what better than to do a 'what if' Claire Chennault had P-51Ds available for the Flying Tigers? I have the KitsWorld decal set for the Flying Tigers so am going to do Chuck Older's plane. Unfortunately, could not get my act together fast enough to finish before the end of the year. Recognizing right away the big difference between the two kits, my invincibility cloak fast hit the floor. Doing a 'quick build' I did the bare minimum engine build since I have no plans to open up the front and ignored the ammo bins for the wings. SOOOO closed up the fuselage, and nothing fit right. The cockpit is skewed about 2mm to one side (not sitting centered), and I had to work the engine/framing to close up the nose. No idea what was going on there. Finally got it closed. While distracted on the fuselage, I closed up the wings and was getting ready to dry fit the wings to the fuselage when I noticed the wheel well sitting in the box. Yep: closed up the wings and didn't get the wheel wells in there. Wings were dry. Sigh. So now its 'in flight'. Side note, the undercarriage parts do not fit the wing openings very well anyway. Dragon vs Tamiya I guess. Using the Model Master Acrylics, on top using Dark Earth applied irregularly with camo provided RAF Dark Green again in a mottled application as would befit and AVG aircraft. Underneath, went with a Luftwaffe sky blue. Why not? Would love to tell you that I did pre-shading underneath, but actually just worked the airbrush to darker and lighter shades. Worked really well on the Dragon plastic. I'm sure it was me, but the fit of the wings to the fuselage was terrible HUGE wing root gaps and under the nose is a gap as well. So thought I would try a technique I've seen a lot of people use, but I have never tried. Using modelers clay to outline the camo. I used to use masks, but this promised to be a lot easier. It was, but still had some problems. Worked pretty well, and the patterns were pretty easy to apply. Added bonus is they are so easy to take off the minute I'm done painting. The only problem I ran into is what looks like a residue is left over. After I'm sure everything is dry, I'll give it a wash and see what's up. Any suggestions or thoughts? After it is all dry, then a clear coat and ready for the decals. Can't wait!

Always wondered what would have happened in the Pacific if the Mustang had shown up much earlier. What if the P-51D had been used by the American Volunteer Group and a new plane showed up in China for the group? Going to use the Dragon 1/32 kit dressed in Flying Tigers colors, Chuck Older's aircraft, and in a departure from most of my builds, will be strictly OOB. Just getting started on the cockpit detail. Ohhh so different from the Tamiya kit! The engine is the bare minimum I think is needed to get the prop and all installed since I'll keep the cowls buttoned up. Using the PE instrument panel as I just could not figure out how to use the clear plastic piece. But FIFTEEN separate decals!! Painted the bottom a variation of the British Sky Blue. On the wing top I've put down the Earth Brown, currently showing some initial weathering (maybe a hastily applied paint job before the plane was dispatched to China?) Will be VERY interesting trying to fit the P-40 sharks mouth onto the P-51 tho. Hoping to finish this up before the end of August.

Having the Dragon P-51D kit in my stash for quite a while and I wanted to build something fun so bought a set of KitsWorld Flying Tigers decals for a 1/32 P-40 to see if I could put the two together. Decided on Chuck Older's aircraft as it had a distinctive blue mouth that I liked. The building didn't quite go as planned, and I ended up with a lot of fit issues, but all in all, it was still something fun to try. The decals, especially the sharksmouth, actually fit very well on the P-51. The Camo was done using blue-tac, with Model Master Acrylics providing the colors. MM gloss to seal the decals, then clear flat. The decals went on fine, and especially around the nose which only needed a bit of paint touch up on the blue in the mouth. This was very much a quick build, so was not as concerned with various details as much as just getting it together to see how it would look in the AVG colors. Something fun to do!