This 1/72 scale Tamiya kit has been collecting dust for about one year now and during my vacation I finally got to build it.
I'm a very keen what-if modeller and decided to build it as a fictitious P-51D Mustang belonging to the 332nd FG during the D-Day invasion, since this very important event took place 75 years ago this year.
This is an aircraft in service with the 99th FS and the successful pilot has proudly painted 19 air combat kill markings, some of them shared and some of them his own. Except for the 99th FS identification code, the various stencils and the aircraft name, all decals are from the Tamiya kit.
This is the very first build where I've used Mikro Set and Mikro Sol all the way. These fluids really made all the difference! They are very easy to work with and the final result is just outstanding.
Compared to the Tamiya decals, the ones from LPS Hobby were a real pain to apply. From the very moment that I put the decal paper into the water the decal started to come off. And for the very first time during my many years as plastic modeller, I found myself forced to apply the stencil decals using a toothpick!
In contrast to the Tamiya decals, that weren't tiring to work with in any way shape or form, these useless decals really depleted me of all joy otherwise associated with plastic modelling.
But at the same time they do add to the final result and complete the final impression of my Mustang. This together with the cut out control surfaces, that ware glued into individual positions, in order to give the create an aircraft, this simply looks much better than an aircraft without all the stencils.
For this build I also used a cockpit set from Aires, something that really added to the final impression! This kit was very hard to paint and assemble, but the end result is just astonishing.
However I had some troubles fitting it to the Tamiya kit and didn't succeed completely with this step during the build. As a result the canopy doesn't look as good as it could have, since it didn't fit like a glove.
Still I'm very pleased with the overall result. The approximately 35 hours that it took to complete the build truly were worth the extra efforts that I took with this plastic modelling kit. The end result has exceeded all of my expectations.
However, even if Tamiya as usual had a top notch precision with this kit, they still could have given me the option of building the aircraft with the landing gear up instead of down. This would have given me the option of displaying this P-51D in a more interesting way. Now it can only be displayed siting on the ground, and that quite frankly just looks boring. They could also have added a pilot figure with this quite expensive kit.
Cheers, Morgan // Swede