Trumpeter 1/32 P-51B Mustang
By Tolga Ulgur
This is 1/32 Trumpeter P-51B Mustang finished with the markings of “Ding Hao” flown by Maj. James Howard of the 356th Fighter Squadron at RAF Boxted, Essex, England, UK; early 1944.
Howard s Mustang was named “DING HAO!” and carried the victory marks from those AVG actions. [“Ding Hao” was an American World War II slang term based on the Chinese phrase, “ting hao de” meaning “very good” or “number one”.]
This kit has some accuracy problems. It needs some corrections and modifications. There is a shape problem on exhaust area and radiator cowling. And also upper fuselage area between right and left rear cockpit windows is too wide.
Cockpit and Wheel well area modified by Aires sets.
Trumpeter molded navigation lights as a single light on the tip of each wing like on the P-51D. But these lights of P-51B should be on the top and lower on the wings. I deleted and put them on the correct places.
Painting was done with Gunze Sangyo acrylics. Upper surfaces painted to Olive drab and lower surfaces to Neutral gray.
I have used Zotz decals set instead of wrong size kit decals.
And final modifications:
- Exhaust stacks are from Quickboost exhaust set
- Spinner and propeller are from Quickboost
- Wheels replaced by Barracudacast goodies
- I have used Resicast lens for the landing light
This is finished after a matt coat and some weathering.
Should I have eliminated the large number of rivets on wing surfaces? Considering other faults that could not be corrected, I decided it was not worth the effort.
Happy modelling.
© Tolga Ulgur 2016
This article was published on Friday, August 26 2016; Last modified on Friday, August 26 2016