Just got finished settingt up my workbench and the firsty one across it is the P-38J. As usual I looked all of the parts over looking for short shots and other flaws when I noticed something peculiar. They’ve included extra parts to make an F-5!! Know I need to know is, are the regular gun doors going to be accurate for the F-5 or is the whole thing too short? I’ve seen pics of F-5s’ with a big bulbous nose (White Lightning of Lefty Gardner fame comes to mind here) BUT, can an accurate F-5 be built from this kit??
Before any asks, I’m not going to super detail the main gear wells on this one.
roadkill_275;
well it looks to be the older nose of the F-5/early F-6 stylings but with a little epoxy and wella you got a late F-6 just like the Academy’s
I hate to get picky, but isn’t the P-38 an F-4 and F-5? I think the P-51 is an F-6.
If you have pictures of Lefty Gardner’s White Lightening with the F-5G nose, you have gotten a hold of some old pictures. It hasn’t had a photo nose since the early sixties. Be nice to see them if you can post them!
Lefty and Ladd have sold N25Y to Redbull, and the airplane will probably be flying very soon.
My mistake, I typed a 6 when I should’ve typed a 5. Thats what happens when you try to type in the dark[:P]. I managed to locate a few pics of the F-5 and it looks like the gun doors remained the same, so when I do the next one (I’ve got five in the build pile) it’ll be done as an F-5 and hopefully I’ll be able to cobble together some markings for it. Does anyone know the FS numbers for that shade of blue they’re painted? Or for that matter what it’s called?
cwmcmillin: The pics I saw of N25Y were in a book called Ghosts. If I can find it (most of my books are still packed) I’ll scan it and send you a copy.
72cuda: Thanks for the info. I was curious as too wether or not it would make an accurate build. The Monogram kits are the easiest for me to get my hands on, so that is what I usually build. Michaels recently had some plastic kits on sale and I picked up 6 of the Lightnings for 3$ each. Along with 3 P-61s for 5$ each.
roadkill_275;
they where painted in Haze paint, it’s a blueish/grayish color it’s hard to explain because of the way it was applied and the problems it had when it was used, the best place to check it out is on Google search, and I think there was an article a while back in the magazine if memory serve me correctly
Haze paint was a pretty nasty translucent chemical coating sprayed over the original paint. (At least that’s the way it was described to me.) The reason they stopped using it was because it took 4 hours to spray and 12 hours to dry a plane that normally would be sitting outside 5 hours after the first spritz of OD green. There was also a few health problems experienced by the guys using it, even with the “proper” equipment an ventiation. I saw pics of where they applied some to craft in the field and they sprayed right over the insignia and serial numbers. you could still see them, but now they were “low-viz.” I’m not sure what color to use though. Does anyone know which issued had the article that wibhi2 is refering to?
Does anyone know if the Monogram F-5B nose will fit on the Academy P-38J kit?
I was pretty excited to learn of the -B-series nose as it looks ‘better’ in my own, little opinion. The Monogram P-38 is about the only 1/48 Monogram kit from the 1970’s that escaped my hands. I’d love to give it a go someday.
Is there any resin interior sets that fit by the way?