Eduard's 1/48 scale
Airacobra Mk.I

by Roland Sachsenhofer

Bell P-39Q Airacobra 71st TRS, 82nd TRG/ William A. Shomo

Eduard's 1/48 scale P-39 Airacobra Dual Combo is available onine from Squadron

Here is the third of my 1/48 scale Eduard "Dual Combo" P-39/400 Airacobras by Eduard.

P-39s in British colours have been a rare site: only one Squadron introduced this type into the fighting over northern Europe- and that was limited to brief period in October 1941.
Over 600 have been ordered in the summer of 1940 when Britain needed everything that seemed useful to keep up the fight. One year later, when the first Airacobras had arrived they were quickly rendered unfit for fighter combat. Only 80 of the 600 delivered were assembled and those handed over to 601 Squadron in Duxford should do evaluation work for a new purpose as ground attack planes.

In those days, 601 Sqadron. was visited by a soviet purchasing commission. That opened the door for a new life of the British Airacobras: about 200 were delivered to the Russians who loved the potentials of that type. The British order in the US was taken over by the US government after December 1941, the USAAF used that type under the designation P-400.

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The British press had been invited to document the introduction of US equipment to the fighting forces of Britain, hence there exist plenty of quality pictures of Airacobras in Duxford. One of those pictured is the plane of Squadron Leader E.J. Gracie, DFC. which I tried to reproduce with this model.

A specific of those Airacobras was the thin colour line in Dark Earth running alongside the edge of Dark Green/ Mixed Gray. To reproduce this oddity was the only challenge during building that comfortable and well equipped kit.

If you are interested in the building process, please have a look on the workbench at the JAM Forum:

http://www.razyboard.com/system/morethread-p-400-airacobra-raf-eduard-148-raidenjack-2086023-6220153-0.html

As ever, remarks will be appreciated: ro.sachsenhofer@gmx.at

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2013 by Roland Sachsenhofer
Page Created 19 April, 2013
Last Updated 19 April, 2013

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