Hey all - I just got Hasagawa’s 1/72, 50th Anniversary, D-Day P-38J, and would like to know if anyone has built this kit. It appears to be a special edition kit (they have other A/C in this series), and since I am a builder and collector, I wonder if it is worth getting another one. When it comes to rare kits, I like (if I can afford it) to have one to build and one to keep mint. I’m not planning to unload it on Ebay or anything, just that someday it will be left to my kids (along with my builds).
Anyway, just wondered if anyone can give me a quick review or opinion.
Can’t comment on future collector value, but as a kit to build I would rank it in third place behind the 1/72 Dragon/DML kit & the recent Academy release. The new Academy 1/72 P-38 is by far the best of the 3 with great fit & detail.
I bought this one because I’ve heard such good things about Hasegawa, and I just love invasion stripes!! Probably not the best reasons for buying a kit, as one can always paint and detail any model into any variant, but it caught my eye and I went for it.
So, with all this in mind, and now, considering it a third ranked kit, I just opened it, and:
You’re right. It has raised panel lines and most disappointing of all, those invasion stripe decals, that I so love, already have a yellowish cast to them, whereas the second decal sheet with white code letters and rudder markings (which I would have painted anyway) are pure white.
However, there are stars and bars on the same decal sheet as the code letters. The code letters are pure white, but the stars/bars have the same yellowish cast to them.
So now I am wondering: Were invasion stripes and the stars/bars painted in a different white, or is this a mistake by Hasegawa? (I know that invasion stripes were also painted roughly in the field).
If need be, I’ll paint the white correctly, but I need to know if the white should truly be different.
That yellowish cast you speak of is typical of ‘standard’ Hasegawa decals. Although if one of the sheets has two different shades of white on it, then that is quite interesting if not unusual.
Is it the same yellowish cast as on the other sheet, or does it look to have been printed that way? Is it more gray than yellow? There were cases of the insignia being greyed out to reduce visibility and perhaps the decals have been printed to reflect this. I’m not familiar with the P-38 kit in the D-Day series so cannot comment from personal experience.
As to how the invasion stripes would appear in relation to the other markings, I suppose it comes down to timeframe. If anything, the white stripes should probably be a more brilliant white than the other white markings. This is because the stripes were freshly applied at a point in time when other markings, such as the stars and bars, having been present for a much longer period of time, would have been exposed to dirt, dust, grime, etc. Also, as I mentioned above, the white in the national insignia was sometimes greyed out or simply left ‘dirty’.
Even after many weeks or months the stripes would most likely still appear to be ‘whiter’ than the other markings. Of course this depends upon whether or not specific ground crews kept their charges clean.
This is where reference comes into play as you no doubt know. So if you need any photo documentation you know who you can go to… [;)]
Thanks Steve, I agree that the stripes should be brighter (they look cooler that way).
The dirty cast to the stripes is more of a greyish color, not like the yellowing on old decals. The grey cast is consistent between the two decal sheets also, so it appears to be intentional, but it still isn’t right (to me).
Here’s the best pic I could take right now. I think you can see the difference in white between the “E’s” and the stripes.
The scheme I plan on doing is for “Mama’s Boy” (20th FG, 55th FS, tail code 328301). It has (of course) the most stripes of all the schemes in this kit, although I’m not too keen on the name. If you know of another plane with as many stripes, I’d like to know. I can get A/M decals, or make my own. No matter what though, I know I’ll end up painting those stripes, but I’m not looking forward to masking around those intake scoops.
