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I know, I SWORE I was done with P-39's after the debacle with the KH P-39 (and soothed my frayed nerves with a Eduard P-39 just to make up for it), but ended up with the Special Hobby P-39Q a while ago and finally pulled it out to take a look at it. After building five other P-39s I finally found a subject I had never seen before - so giving it one last go! SH with the resin cockpit and Eduard PE Interior bits. Lovely, with NO engine or nose machinery so this should be a decently quick build with most of the focus on the finish (more on that in just a minute) and the cockpit. Kind of unassuming, and I missed it when I looked at the box, but that is a gloss black Airacobra from the Pacific theater. Its called 'Spare Parts' as it was cobbled together from various 72nd FS aircraft. Here is the text from a 1944 article about this aircraft: REBORN P-39 FIGHTER PLANE NAMED SPARE PARTS Spare Parts is the name of this reborn Bell P-39 Airacobra fighter . Riddled by Jap bullets in the South Pacific , it was tough enough to be patched together again with odds and ends after officers at first thought it was ready for the junk pile. The picture is an official U.S. Air Forces photo, and shows some of the men who put their spare parts to good use. Ingenuity—as someone has pointed out — is one of the real secret weapons of American soldiers . And to prove the point, the story has just drifted back to this country about how a group of mechanical-minded boys in a South Pacific theater took a bullet-riddled plane, a collection of odds and ends, a lot of elbow-grease—-and, with these ingredients, put together a fighter plane that no one expected to see . They started with a wrecked Bell Aircraft Airacobra (P-39) shot down in combat by the Japs. It was all ready for the junk heap. But they scrambled around and put together enough salvaged parts to put the plane back into flying trim again. Appropriately enough, they named the ship Spare Parts. Builders of the plane are members of the Sky Riders Squadron of the 7th Air Force. Written off the books, no longer boasting a serial number, the reborn fighter, at last reports, was still doing a job in the air . How can you not LOVE a gloss black Airacobra?? Love the idea of a glossy black finish so will be spending a bit more time than usual on this Airacobra finish. Usually they are pretty heavily weathered but this one seems to have been rather decently well taken care of. With no engine or nose canon, etc to deal with, already have the entire plane in primer and have sprayed the green zinc chromate for the vents and the wheel wells, and most of the interior green for the cockpit. Taking the easy route and just going with the green chromate as I didn't have yellow handy. I did notice what looks like the circular antenna behind the cockpit, which I don't think is in the kit so I'll have to do a bit more research and see if it really was on the aircraft or if that is something behind the plane, in the picture. So there we go. On to P-39 number 6. Chris