P-39 Airacobra, by Kitty Hawk

[Dpgsbody55]

I thought I'd take another crack at this group build.  I'm not sure I'll finish by the time this group build ends, so if that is the case, perhaps one of the forum Admins can move it to the WIP section.

 

I bought this kit about 3 years ago, but once I saw some reviews, it got put at the back of the stash.  But now seems like a good time to have a go at it, especially as I've long wanted to add a detailed P-39 to my display.

 

 

I'm adding a little aftermarket, which I bought as soon as I saw it, though now I'm not too sure about the seat belts.  I don't get on well with fabric belts and I'm jealous of the results others have achieved with them.

 

 

This is about as far as I've got so far.  I've looked back at some of the builds on this site and decided I'm going to take this very carefully and check the fit inside the fuselage at every stage.  I've checked the fit of the basic fuselage components ad as long as great care is taken with cleaning up the parts, so far so good.  Whatever causes the fit issues I've seen, it's not the floor or fuselage halves themselves, but all the other stuff that goes inside.

 

 

The only bit of gluing I've done is to glue together the top covers to the gun compartment and check that fit.

 

 

Next step will be to start painting the interior bits, and I'm not sure if the instructions get the colours right.  The usual practice in American WW2 planes was to spray the airframe interior in yellow zinc chromate primer, and the cockpit in an interior green.  I have an idea that Bell used a slightly darker shade of green to the usual US colours, so that's what I'm thinking right now.  So if anyone can shed further light on the colours used on later P-39's supplied to the VVS, I'd appreciate the heads up before I start.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[Lothar]

That's a build I'll definitely follow, the P-39 is one of my all time favourite WWII aircraft and your start looks

promising. 

Lothar

[Dany Boy]

Interesting! I will follow this thread  

[Dpgsbody55]

Thanks Gentlemen.  The Airacobra is one of those planes that is both intriguing because of it's design, and fascinating because of it's operational history.  Glad to see someone has modelled it with the internals too.  It was a plane that you had to fly properly or else it would bite.  But if you put the effort in, it flew well.

 

I've just been trolling through my photos looking for pictures of the Allison engine.  Here's a couple I thought might be interesting, taken at Fantasy of Flight in 2012. 

 

 

 

It's quite a collection, and these two pics were taken in the engine store.  Apparently, Kermit Weeks just buys them up to make sure their preserved, but is quite happy to sell you one for your restoration.  The differences between the engines is quite remarkable too.  You can tell which engines came out of a P-40B or C by the longer reduction case with it's lower prop shaft.  This shot also shows three engines which don't have a reduction gear housing on the front as these came from a P-39, which had the reduction gear housing in the nose, immediately behind the propeller.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited March 3, 2020 by Dpgsbody55

[RLWP]

I have racking like that in my unit. Only it is much less tidy and full of distressed Lister boat engines...

 

Richard

[Dpgsbody55]

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

[Dpgsbody55]

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

[Azgaron]

Very nice work so far!

 

Håkan

 

[LSP_Ray]

Looks like you have made plenty of progress to me!

There was a lengthy discussion when the kit came out about it's length compared to the SH kit and reality. Might try a search in the LSP forum, even though the search engine is not the greatest.

[quang]

Hello Michael,
Great start for an ambitious project! 
As for the lengthening of the fuselage, you might be interested to know how I did it in this WIP here. 
The thread dates back from a few years ago when I was still using the #@“!& Ph*tobucket as an image host, so I’m sorry for the quality of my photos. Nevertheless I hope you will find the text helpful.

 

Quang

[Alain Gadbois]

A P-39 with red stars is great! I will follow with interest.

 

Alain

[Dpgsbody55]

21 hours ago, LSP_Ray said:

Looks like you have made plenty of progress to me!

There was a lengthy discussion when the kit came out about it's length compared to the SH kit and reality. Might try a search in the LSP forum, even though the search engine is not the greatest.

 

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.

 

20 hours ago, quang said:

Hello Michael,
Great start for an ambitious project! 
As for the lengthening of the fuselage, you might be interested to know how I did it in this WIP here. 
The thread dates back from a few years ago when I was still using the #@“!& Ph*tobucket as an image host, so I’m sorry for the quality of my photos. Nevertheless I hope you will find the text helpful.

 

Quang

 

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

[Dany Boy]

Very good model and interesting modeling proces

Hans Rudel described in his book P-39 Airacobra as an ferocious enemy

 An interestin comparison between this two.

Самолеты Як-9, «Аэрокобра» и «Спитфайер IX» из состава 2-го гв.ИАК ПВО, г. Ленинград, 1944-1945 гг.

Image source Журнал «М-Хобби» №5/2019

https://zeughaus.ru/zhurnal-m-khobbi-52019/

 

Edited February 11, 2020 by Dany Boy

[Dpgsbody55]

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

[Dany Boy]

I’m not deep in this P-39 «Аэрокобра»  subject, but I have one or two PDF books in English, Russian and other languages in my collections and I after I browse through the illustrations I found that you are rights about standard US paint.  

This is the only interesting camouflage profile I manage to find here.

These are interesting too.