1/32 P-39 Aircobra, best kit in the market?

[Antonio Argudo]

are these the best option, which? any recommendation are welcome

cheers

[ironman1945]

Hey Antonio

 

I have both kits, though the Special Hobby one was the P-400 version.   I intend to build the Kitty Hawk kit as a Soviet version.

When I measured the Special Hobby version against plans, I discovered the fuselage is a bit short just ahead of the tail planes. You can see what I did in the link below.

Other than that, it was a typical short run kit build, with all that such a kit involves.

 

I've heard the KH kit is short in the fuselage as well (have not measured it up yet), and seen some comments that its a difficult build. I've heard the same about the SH kit.

 

I think if I didnt have either kit and was just in the market to buy 1, I'd just pick the cheapest.

 

Hope that helps

 

Dave/Ironman1945

 

 

 

 

 

 

[thierry laurent]

Another rarely mentioned default of the SH kit is the thickness of the wings & elevators trailing edges. This asks for serious sanding work.

[Royboy]

23 hours ago, thierry laurent said:

Another rarely mentioned default of the SH kit is the thickness of the wings & elevators trailing edges. This asks for serious sanding work.

I guess you could call it a modellers kit, who wants a shake and bake anyway...boring.  

[Dpgsbody55]

I built the KH kit and enjoyed it immensely.  So much so, I bought another.  For the most part it goes together well, but check fit everything and see how it will fit against those parts yet to be added.  To that end, glue the forward fuselage to the main fuselage first, then build up the floor and check each part as you fit it  There's two areas to be careful of.  The first is how the instrument panel fits.  If you angle it forward too much, it fowls the canopy.  The second are is the armament in the nose.  There's a box that fits just in front of the cannon feed and you'll need to round off the forward corners to get the top part of the forward fuselage to fit.

 

 

I also had to thin down the insides of that part.

 

 

But it does all fit.

 

 

From memory, everything else was a breeze.  If it helps, check out my build here.

 

One other thing I did was NOT to add the nose wheel leg when suggested by the instructions as I'm quite sure I'd have broken it during construction.  During construction of the nose wheel well, I clipped the mounting peg out so that I could slide the leg into place around the prop drive shaft.  Then I glued some strips of 0.5mm flat stock into place in the wheel well just in front of where the leg mounts to give me something to glue the leg to.  Having attached the front nose wheel door onto the leg, I then glued the leg into place and manoeuvered the actuating links into place to get the right angles.  It all worked out fine, and to this day, the kit legs are bearing the weight of the model just fine.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

[John Stambaugh]

Thanks for the pointers on th Khawk kit Micheal. 

 I would have to believe that the Khawk kit is the better choice. 

[Dpgsbody55]

You're welcome, John.  Looking forward to see your P-39 build progress, whichever you decide to do.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael