Mural

Nicolas
Following

Robert Podkoński
Me 2!

Marcin Dudek
👀 3rd

Lorraine Lin
Following

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat too.

Dave Burgess
Interior completed with photo-etch. A few touchups to be made. Wings & tail surfaces attached. Just need to mask canopy then we're ready for airbrushing.

Dave Burgess
This project turns out to be a bit more complex than converting the Bell P39D into a Bell P-45 (P-39C) by snipping off a couple of wing guns. In this case, three P-3Ds were modified for ground & flight testing. The intended engine was the Continental 1430, but they were only ever flown with the AlLison V-1710. They were used to test various wing and tail configurations, and the fuselage was lengthened by 21". The production variant was to be called the P-76, so the designation used during testing was XP-39E. The only pic I have, shows one of the XP-39E's with clipped wings and tail surfaces, like the P-51. The wingspan was 35'10" almost 2 feet greater than the P-39D (34'0")
So - the plan is: get a P-51D kit; scavenge the wing and tail surfaces (i.e. chop off the back end of the Mustang fuselage); do the same with the Airacobra and graft on the Mustang's tail; re-sculpt the Mustang's wing to match the contour of the XP-39E; remove the wheel wells from the Airaicobra's wing (which I stupidly glued in already; cut openings into the Mustang wings to accommodate the Airacobra's wheel wells. Sounds like a LOT of putty's gonna be involved in THIS one! Wish me luck!

Dave Burgess
Bell P-45 (P-39C) Airacobra. A fairly simple conversion:
"After completing service trials, and originally designated P-45, a first order for 80 aircraft was placed 10 August 1939; the designation reverted to P-39C before deliveries began. After assessing aerial combat conditions in Europe, it was evident that without armor or self-sealing tanks, the 20 production P-39Cs were not suitable for operational use. The remaining 60 machines in the order were built as P-39Ds with armor, self-sealing tanks and enhanced armament. -Wiki
Since the added pilot armour and self sealing tanks are not visible externally, a couple of snips to remove a wing gun on each side, converted this P-39D model into a P-45 (P-39C). I stuck with the decals provided (Soviet A.F.)

Dave Burgess
According to Wiki - the trapeze and belly tank were a P-39D modification, but the interior of the tank was critical for me to get enough weight forward of the main LG to keep this model from being a tail-dragger! The interior construction of the forward fuselage and placement of forward LG made it VERY difficult to get enough counter-weight in there; a problem I did NOT experience with the RS Models kit.

Nicolas
Following

Dave Burgess
Continuing the build, while I wait for the decals. It's at the paint stage now; just have to apply the canopy mask.

Robert Podkoński
Taking a seat here!

Ben M
For my next project i have tentatively I was going to try making my own decals. I've also used stsdecals in the past.

Robert Podkoński
Good job as always, Dave!

Ekki
Watching

Dave Burgess
Continuing the build, while I wait for the decals to arrive. It's at the painting stage now. I still have to mask the canopy.

Dave Burgess
Decal sheet only

Matthew A
A friend who's uncle flew a fury in Korea told me how the yank jet pilots got really angry when Furys sped past them. Brilliant job

Dave Burgess
Not surprised. Korean era jets were notoriously underpowered.

Konrad
Nice one 🙂 I have it in my plans too 🙂 I'm "buing" an idea with shaft 🙂

Ekki
Beautiful colours. Well done.

Villiers de Vos
Very nice work.

Dave Burgess
Pics have been re-taken after I realized I'd installed the forward landing gear back-to-front, and corrected it.

Ekki
Good result!

Ekki
Very good work.
Well done!

Ben M
Wow, so colorful!

Erik De Smet
mister craft kits are a very mixed bag. Some of them , like the thunderjet, are poor copies of very old (50 years +) kits. Some are reissues of older KP kits , but their fouga magister is apparently a reboxing of the Heller kit with their decals. btw their decals are mostly of poor quality, inaccurate & incomplete. But if you have spare decals e.g. from a Special Hobby kit, some of their kits like the fouga, maybe a cheap alternative. Here at scalemates , you can always check the product timeline to find the ancestors of a kit, and a vendor like super hobby shows the content of the kit on their website so that you can know what to expect before buying.

Dave Burgess
Erik, I know. I use the Scalemates database frequently. This was just one of those impulse buys. I was searching EBay for kits to complete my Thunderbirds collection and this one popped up. I hadn't heard of the Skyblazers before, so decided to pick it up. I've built a lot of 'marginal' kits in the past, so I usually don't worry about that. I can still build them, and if they're sub-standard but of a unique subject, that's fine with me. But this kit was SO bad, that when the decals started disintegrating, there was no point in even keeping the kit. That's the first time in 65+ years of model building, that I've tossed a kit without completing it!

Ben M
A beautiful build of an interesting subject as is usual from you!

Dave Burgess
Thx Ben. I particularly liked 'posing' it alongside my fictional Tiger Meet CL1200 (CF-204??).

Spanjaard
I did that color scheme ages ago, I wish it would have looked half as good as yours 🙂

Dash Rendar
Great build, well done!

Torsten
Awesome build and pant job 😎 😎 😎

Torsten
WOW 😎 ❤️️

Dash Rendar
Great build! Always nice to see B5!

Robert Podkoński
Great job, Dave!

Dave Burgess
Thx. This was an EBay purchase of a partially completed model. The rescue turned out pretty well.

Ekki
Nice work!

Dave Burgess
Thx. I'm gonna have to re-take the teaser photo: it's a bit out of focus

Robert Podkoński
Good job, Dave!

Chris Ubing
Nice work on the hornet 🙂