Any scale, though I prefer 1/72nd. Go into detail and, if you have pics from during construction, post 'em.
In 1/72 the P-38J Academy kit is my favorite. Accurate, well engineered, great fit & good detail. Arguably the easiest Lightning to build in any scale.
Regards, Rick
Now knowing what to look for in 1/72nd scale, here is to what to look out for in 1/48th… I really like the detailing of the Hasegawa line of 38’s. They have crisp lines, detailed cockpit and over all detailing is great but…
If you want accuracy especially in the area of the turbo charger(where Hasegawa lacks), I’d go for the Academy line.
Nicely detailed as well and the price is right arounf $25…
Flaps up,
Mike
Rangers Lead The Way
I used to have the 1/48 Academy Glacier Girl and it looked like a superb kit. I really liked the vinyl tires.
1/72 is not my gig, but the Revell/Monogram 1/48 P-38 is good/decent kit, gives you options to build, and with some work, looks great…
In 1/72 I have an Academy P-38J, Revell / Monogram P-38 L/M and several Dragon kits for the special purpose lightnings.
I have not built any of them yet, but just looking in the boxes, they all look good. I would agree the Academy kit looks to be the most straight forward of the bunch.
The R/M kit allows you to build it with several panels open, but that does add more places to have fit problems if you want to build it closed up. It can also be built as a nightfighter.
The Dragon kits were designed to allow multiple versions to be offered without completely retooling the kit, so again more places for problems if you just want a basic Lightning. Dragon offers two bomber versions (droop snoot & pathfinder), a P-38M nightfighter and the F-5 recon version in addition to the P-38J fighter.
A lot of kits look good in their box …unbuilt…after construction begins, its a whole different story! I usually build 1:48, and the worst P-38 that I built was the ProModeler kit. Long story short....couldnt get the booms even until I heated up the port side and bent it until they were even. Had no trouble at all with the Revell kit.
That sounds like you got a “Monday” kit, Troublemaker…
Don’t buy the Revell kit, raised panel lines, not so great detail, and poor fit.
Academy has a nice 1/72 I heard.
At the risk of sounding like a dope, what exactly is a Monday kit? Seen it used here before but sure.[:D]
“Monday kits” are the ones that get packaged on Monday, when Quality Control is at it’s lowest level…
Weenie… J/K…
Yeah it has some fit issues, but not enough to make it a “bad” kit… Just around the wing-to-boom and the ammo doors… Nothing a little filling/sanding can’t fix… Plus, it has the options of building several versions, including the M-model Night-fighter, F-5 Photo-bird, and “Droop Snoot” Pathfinder…
Best P-38 out there in 1/48th for the price… And the “raised lines” issue is why it’s a 16.00 kit and not 30.00… Folks get too wound on those things, and take it for granted that because they’re engraved, they’re accurate… Ain’t necessarily so…
The P-38 is mostly a “stressed-skin” bird and doesn’t have all that many butt-jointed panels to begin with, and others are overlapping, which are better represented with raised lines anyway, IMNSHO… The rivets are quite nice and pretty close to being where they should be… But, it IS, after all, a 35-40 year old kit…
Here’s a better shot of the “panel lines” on a Lightning… Notice that, except for doors, cowl-sections, and access hatches, there aren’t many…
For the price two Academy kits, you could build 3 of the 4 versions of the Revellogram kit… If you have a Hobby Lobby nearby, with the 40% off coupon, you can build all four for the price of two Academy kits and still have some change…
But even though I have always been an avid (some would say rabid?) Monogram guy, I built the Academy J and M models too… But rather than tell y’all about it, I found a side-side build log of the two kits…
That way, it’s not just my opinion I’m “forcing” on ya, lol…
http://www.ipmslivonia.org/ipms/Gallery/P-38/P38-Lightning.htm
I do agree with the guy on the Monogram decals though… Save yourself a headache… Buy a decent set of AM decals for the Nightfighter version, OR, do what I did, and use dry transfers (got a set of red alpha-numerics from Woodland Scenics in the model railroad department) wherever you can instead of water-slide… The Monogram “Common” decals work fine over any of the other versions, be it Haze Blue, OD over Neutral Grey, or NMF, but the red markings for the “M” model are VERY translucent… Or, you could print your own “red stuff” on white decal paper…
You said “Any scale” and no one has mentioned it yet. If you want the finest details, go for Trumpeter’s Lockheed P-38L-5-L0 “Lightning” 1:32! This one:
I wonder whether other scales have this much details…
Sure you will find exceptions, and something complex like a P-38 will certainly push those exceptions, but you can usually get a pretty good feel for what kind of build experience you are going to have when you open the box. Just seeing the quality of parts, and how they break down tells you a lot about a kit.
This is interesting to me, since if I’m not mistaken, ProModeler is Revell-Monogram’s higher-shelf brand, albeit with kits of various origins and not just revampings of original Monogram moldings. Does anyone know if the ProModeler Lightning is based on the original Monogram kit–which, I imagine, is the Revell kit TM built–or did it originate with another company, and RM bought the rights and re-issued it in the ProModeler line?
I’ve heard others say that the original Monogram P-38 has some fit issues, but I don’t recall, myself, since it’s been about 30 years since I built that kit, and it will be a while till I get to the one in my stash.
Not to be a weenie… But name a P-38 it that fits perfectly? Every one of them I have ever seen has fit issues around the boom and the doors on the nose.
As I recall, the ProModeler kit was a re-boxing of the Hasegawa molds, not the older classic Monogram kit.
I built the Monogram kit when it was first released back in the late sixties. It was state-of-the-art back then and was an example of Monogram moving away from the “moving parts” kits of the early sixties.
I think it still holds up pretty well today. I think the biggest shortcoming is the lack of any detail in the wheel wells.
Mark
…and as far as those wheel well details go, there are some good detail pics in the P-38 Lightning GB thread.
From what I understand, the P/M P-38 is a re-boxed Hasegawa kit…guess I shouda stated that in my original reply.
Yep…should tell ya how a builds gonna go but sometimes looks are deceiving. MPM kits come to mind…nicely molded and detailed but if you can`t fit two of those pretty parts together, what do you have. Classic Airframes kits are another nicely detailed kit with PE and resin but are a PITA to build…just my opinion and experience on those kits that I built. Tamiya kits are the only pretty-in-the-box kits that ever fell together for me.