P-51D Mustang

by Scott Battistoni

Tamiya's 1/72 scale P-51D Mustang is available online from Squadron.com

This is Tamiy's 1/72 P-51D Mustang finished as a Tuskegee Airman bird.

This particular aircraft represents one of three Mustangs flown by Freddie Hutchins.

I replaced most of the kit cockpit with a Cooper Details P-51 cockpit set. This set was designed for the Hasegawa kit but with a little finessing it will fit the Tamiya kit.

The exhaust stacks were hollowed out.

I used Cutting Edges CEC72024 flaps, elevators and rudder set. The cuffs at the base of the propeller blades were corrected in shape. Also I separated the sway braces away from the kit drop tanks and glued these to the kit pylons. The navigation lights were replaced with Cutting Edge colored navigation lights. Lastly I added hydraulic brake lines to the landing gear legs and sanded the tires flat.

The decals are from Aeromaster and the paint is an Alclad finish.

My only complaints are the way Tamiya engineered the clear parts where the glue seam is right next to the clear section of the canopy.

I also disagree with the color of "Little Freddie" on the Aeromaster sheet. To me it would make more sense that the name was painted in red or black and not orange as orange barely shows.

Plus we know that the Tuskegee group had lots of red paint readily available.

Overall this is a nice little Mustang model to build.

Click the thumbnails below to view larger images:

Model, Images and Text Copyright © 2002 by Scott Battistoni
Page Created 08 May, 2002
Last Updated 04 June, 2007

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