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World War II
Discuss WWII and the era directly before and after the war from 1935-1949.
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REVIEW
1:72 Airfix P-51D Mustang (J-26)
Mecenas
Joined: December 23, 2007
KitMaker: 1,596 posts
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Posted: Sunday, December 30, 2012 - 09:51 PM UTC
Magnus Fridsell makes a build-review of the Airfix 1:72 scale P-51D Mustangs. Magnus finishes his kit as J-26 fighter in the Swedish markings.

Link to Item



If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!
SuperSandaas
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Sør-Trøndelag, Norway
Joined: October 23, 2012
KitMaker: 189 posts
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Posted: Monday, December 31, 2012 - 01:06 PM UTC
Got this for christmas(along with the PR XIX Spit and the King Tiger (1:76)) Can't wait to get home and get started after the vacations.

The parts on the sprues look smashing, and I'll think I'll go for the kit option of livery (but paint all the red and yellow areas).

If noone else does it before me I'll try to remember to give some feedback on how the decals perform. Very nice to see the plethora of markings and stenciling. Perhaps the upside of just supplying one set in the kit. (And yes it's Cartograf.)
magnusf
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Stockholm, Sweden
Joined: May 02, 2006
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Posted: Monday, December 31, 2012 - 11:36 PM UTC
Eirik! If the Spit XIX was the one in 1/72 (is the 1/48 out yet by the way?) I did a build of it a few years ago, there is a build blog here.

Good luck with your builds, and I am curious how those decals work!



Magnus
SuperSandaas
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Sør-Trøndelag, Norway
Joined: October 23, 2012
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Posted: Friday, January 04, 2013 - 01:56 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Eirik! If the Spit XIX was the one in 1/72 (is the 1/48 out yet by the way?) I did a build of it a few years ago, there is a build blog here.

Good luck with your builds, and I am curious how those decals work!



Magnus



Thanks. Yes that's the Spit. I've started bookmarking references. Could be a nice break from all the roundels and stars'n'bars to build it with "Tre Kronor" thought it seems there are some weaknesses with the decals. The missing thin black outline on the crowns is one thing but as far as I can tell from photos, the unit shield should be handed, which the decals are not. We'll see. Think I'll do the Mustang first.
magnusf
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Stockholm, Sweden
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Posted: Saturday, January 05, 2013 - 04:56 AM UTC
Keep an eye here, I know Robert is working on a sheet of Swedish Spitfire decals. They are a bit troublesome since the national insignia were of non-standard dimensions so they cannot easily be scrounged elsewhere. If you start with the Mustang, the Spit decals ought to be ready when the Mustang is finished !



Magnus
Antoni
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England - East Midlands, United Kingdom
Joined: June 03, 2006
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Posted: Saturday, January 05, 2013 - 06:21 AM UTC
According to Swedish Fighter Colours three Mustangs (J-26s) were camouflaged, s/n 26001, 26004, and 26031.

26001 (43-6365) P-51B-7, 354 FG, 355 FS. Interned 13th May 1944.
26004 (44-13917) P-51D-5, 359 FG, 503 FS. Interned 6th August 1944.
26031 (44-72220) delivered 23rd April 1945. SOC 21st May 1948. W/o F 16 27th June 1947 Used as ground instructional airframe.

26001 & 26004 presumably retained their USAAF camouflage. 26031 was experimentally painted in the standard Flygvapnet colours olive green and light blue-grey.
magnusf
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Stockholm, Sweden
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Posted: Saturday, January 05, 2013 - 07:15 AM UTC

Quoted Text

According to Swedish Fighter Colours three Mustangs (J-26s) were camouflaged, s/n 26001, 26004, and 26031.

26001 (43-6365) P-51B-7, 354 FG, 355 FS. Interned 13th May 1944.
26004 (44-13917) P-51D-5, 359 FG, 503 FS. Interned 6th August 1944.
26031 (44-72220) delivered 23rd April 1945. SOC 21st May 1948. W/o F 16 27th June 1947 Used as ground instructional airframe.

26001 & 26004 presumably retained their USAAF camouflage. 26031 was experimentally painted in the standard Flygvapnet colours olive green and light blue-grey.



Antoni!

All three green Mustangs were repainted in Swedish green/grey colours (there are photos proving that in several publications).

26001 (ex USAF "Z Hub") was a P-51B that never saw "real" squadron service, it was flown as a "hack" and communications aircraft.

According to my sources the "other" (I've done 26031 from the Airfix kit) green P-51D was 26003 (not 26004), a D-5, the only P-51D in RSWAF without the fin extension.

Have a look here for a condensed history of those aircraft. Those are the instructions for the decals I used, they even include "Z Hub" as it supposedly looked like when it landed in Sweden in May 1944!



Magnus
Antoni
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England - East Midlands, United Kingdom
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Posted: Saturday, January 05, 2013 - 12:29 PM UTC
The book arrived in todays's post. You are correct, there is a mistake in the book. Examination of the photo captions shows 26004 "You've had it" as bare metal and 26003 "Mary Ann" olive green. All the photos of "Z Hub" show it with all the markings removed except the name, US serial number and white id bands. I have no problem with them being later repainted but there are only photos of "Z Hub" in new paint.
SuperSandaas
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Sør-Trøndelag, Norway
Joined: October 23, 2012
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Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - 09:33 AM UTC
Finally I finished the kit and the decals are mostly good. The only issue I had was with the yellow stripes, as they needed a bit of trimming, and is quite stiff. (On the other hand that means they are fully opaque.)

So I would perhaps suggest the yellow stripes being masked and paintet. (I did paint the red stripe behind the propeller, to make sure the color was matching.)
SHarjacek
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Croatia Hrvatska
Joined: January 29, 2011
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Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - 10:24 AM UTC
Very nice build, Love it!

magnusf
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Stockholm, Sweden
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Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 - 08:48 PM UTC
Erik! Good job on that one and thanks for telling us about the decal performance! What did you use for that metal finish? It looks very good!



Magnus
SuperSandaas
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Sør-Trøndelag, Norway
Joined: October 23, 2012
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Posted: Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 03:34 PM UTC

Quoted Text

Erik! Good job on that one and thanks for telling us about the decal performance! What did you use for that metal finish? It looks very good!



Magnus



Sorry for the late reply, hadn't noticed the question. For the metal finish I used different Citadel metallics over a white coat. "Chainmail" mainly, with some panels picked out in a lighter or darker shade. (I mixed "chainmail" with "mithril silver" and "boltgun metal" respectively.)
magnusf
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Stockholm, Sweden
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Posted: Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 05:26 PM UTC
I have used those paints for close to a decade but I haven't done a full NMF using them yet. And now they have changed both the names and the formula for them...



Magnus
JPTRR
Staff MemberManaging Editor
RAILROAD MODELING
#051
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Tennessee, United States
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Posted: Wednesday, March 19, 2014 - 02:34 PM UTC
What a beautiful Mustang in Swedish livery!
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