I just got this kit, it looks very nice. Is there any thing I should know about this kit before starting on it ? I just wanted a heads up.
In my humble opinion Academy’s decals can be a bit troublesome. Be patient with the larger ones.
Brian
It’s a nice kit and goes together fairly well. There are parts in the box to make any of the variants from a P-400 up to the P-39Q, just check your references. The major differences between them were weapons and exhaust stacks. The only major problems I encountered with building mine which would be common to all builds (I built mine as an airracer) would be the crew door and the nose gear strut. The easier of the two fixes is the gear strut. As manufactured, iy sits way to far back in the well. It should be right up against the front of the bay. All I did was add a piece of plastic to the kit piece where the strut would glue in and drilled another hole for the strut to glue into. The door is a whole other story. Most of the time entry into the plane was from the right side, not the left, which is the door they give you as open. This was because the throttle quadrant stuck out into the left door opening and more likely than not, you would bang your knee against it geting in. On the Academy kit, this door just does not fit. Most people just leave it open and not worry about the wrong door being open. If you do decide to close it, here’s what I did. I glued the bottom part of the door to the fuselage, getting the contours as right as I could between the door bottom and the fuselage. By doing this, the top part of the window will be sticking out from the roll over bar on the fuselage. I scored the back side of the window where it met the top of the door until I was able to bend the window back some to meet the roll over bar. Once all that was glued and dried, then came the fun part, getting the canopy to fit. I found the canopy to be too short so some shims were added to the back where it met the rollover bar then I would just do a couple of swipes with sand paper until the whole thing fell into place. If you are into using resin, I would highly recommend the Neomega ( or whoever is making it now) set. It comes with a beautiful cockpit, wheelwells and other stuff but doesn’t really address the problems I stated. It does come with a left hand door, but it’s window edging is the wrong shape. Here is the website for the resin set. http://www.neomega-resin.com/p39.htm
I hope this helps and if you have any questions, let me know.
Her’s a picture of my P-39 Cobra 1.
Eagle pointed out the main problems with the kit. I just left the door open on my build. It’s true pilots used the other door more often, but they both could be used.
Regards, Rick
Thanks for the heads up, I’ve used resin before but really didn’t like it. Its far too brittle for someone of my hamfistedness to work with. I noticed the different nose cones with different cannons in them so I was hoping for some variants. I like anything with an Allison in it so this was right up my alley, I was hopong it was a good kit and it sounds okay. On the Allison front, are there any good 1/72 P-38 kits around ? I’ve got Monograms P-38 in its box and it will probably stay there, its kind of bad.
Academy also makes a real nice 1:72 P-38J (Pacific Theater). I built it a few months ago. The exterior detail is good, and the cockpit is decent. You have a choice of open or closed canopy. The overall fit is good too. Frank
Excellent, so far I like the Academy kit and would like to get some more.
In addition, here’s FSM’s workbench review on the Academy 1/72 P-39:
http://www.finesclae.com/fsm/default,aspx?c=a&id=952
I’ve built two of the Academy Airacobras, one as a P-400 and one as a P-39Q. And have a couple more in my stash. I felt the build was pretty straight forward and was pleased with the results. And yes, the kit contains the parts to make just about any version of the Airacobra. But you need to do some research to determine if certain items molded on the model need to be revamped or removed. For example, the P-400 had several less airscoops on the nose than the later models of the P-39 (which means the molded on scoops need to be removed) and the P-400 had a 20 mm cannon in the nose which was also longer than the 37 mm in the P-39 (so a longer, thinner barrel had to be fabricated and installed). These things aren’t hard to do but aren’t mentioned in the instructions. All that said, the Academy kit is probably the best 1/72 P-39 kit on the market today.
What I would really like to do is to find the old Revell 1/72 P-39 (which I have been told is the most accurately shaped and dimensioned kit ever produced but the detailing leaves something to be desired - lots of raised rivets and you can look down through the cockpit and see the ground out of the wheel wells) and combine it with parts from the Academy kit.
Quincy
If you want to do that Revell kit, that Neomega resin set would be great for it. All you would need then is a belt sander to get the rivits off. [:)]
I saw the P-38 today, I’ll have to get it when I get paid, its twenty dollars. I got their Spitfire Mk. XIV though, its very nice. I’m going to wind up with a few of their kits soon, they have a nice 1/72 selection. Does anyone make a 1/72 Yak-3 and an early MiG ?
Also, the kit contains both the twenty millimeter underwing cannons and the quad 50 caliber machine guns ( two in each wing ). Was it possible to have both the quad 50’s and the twenty millimeter cannons on the same plane in addition to the 37 millimeter canon in the nose ?
The only 20MM the P-39 carried was in the nose, on I believe the P-400. The P-39Q carried 50 calibers in the underwing pods and 30 caliber in the nose. No provisions were made to carry the pods and wing guns.