P-47 just out of depot maintenance...

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
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This is a real horror story that you’re lookin’ at. I won’t go into it in too much detail, but it was a pup of a project. It’s the 'ole Monogram kit which I had started many years back before any of the Hasegawa or Minicraft kits were available. I decided to detail the hell out of this thing and rescribe all the lines and all that…

Well I was in the middle of this thing and the Hasegawa kit was announced. Figures. So I shelved it for a while. (2 years) Then I decided that I had to finish the thing just for the sake of finishing it. I can’t tell you how many times some of the seams cracked and this and that. I’ve never had as much bad luck building a model as I had with this one.

Anyhoo, I finally got it to the point where I could paint the thing. I originally was going to put it in Witold Lanowski’s markings but after the new Hasegawa kits were released I decided to save that one for a “good” build.

I finally settled on Leo Batista’s “Josephine My Flying Machine.” It had nose art, and since I’m a Cheesecake/Nose Art/Pin-Up nut, it was a natural. But the decal (Stupidscale Superscale) was, as usual, rather poorly done. So I decided to enhance it a bit.

I finally finished the thing, took it to several shows, had some success and then brought it home from a regional to have it fall to the cat’s claw. Had the box on our bench in the back hall while I was takin’ care of business. (After 4 hours on the road you’d most likely have something to take care of too) I came back to the back hall to find that my furry feline friends had knocked the box onto the floor, upside down. Had the Bolt on a nice heavy base at the time, too, so needless to say it was pretty much Code 3.

Okay, enuff rambling… I just finished repairing it not too long ago, and here it is!

Lessee… Detailed the bejeezuz out of the cockpit (including my trademark hand-painted placards), wired the engine, rescribed all the lines, added the tail fillet, detailed the gear and replaced the blast tubes with unfinned cryostat tubing.

Oh yeah, and the nose art is hand-painted over the decal.

Enjoy!

Fade to Black…

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Really beautiful bird!

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Leo Battista - pilot of “Josephine My Flying Machine”

Not a very good photo, but this is Leo at the P-47 Pilots Association reunion that was held in San Francisco in 1997. I had the pleasure of spending a lot of time with him at that reunion. A week or so after the reunion I received a package from Leo that contained pics from the reunion as well as photocopies of wartime photos of himself and “Josephine”.

Sadly, he passed away on June 6 2003 while attending the 56th FG Association reunion. At the time of his passing, he was the president of the 56th Association. Leo was a great guy.

Jim

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Steve-o:

Really nice job on Leo’s Jug. So the markings for “Josephine” are available in 1/48th ? If that is the case, I know what I am going to do with a Tamiya bubbletop when I get my hands on one !

Jim

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Wow! I’ve never seen a Monogram Jug look that good! Excellent job.

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Very nice Blackwolf! Do you have any pics of the cockpit?

Eric

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Lovely model, Steve… As they were saying in that movie, “Never Give Up, Never Surrender”…

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Want a REAL depot repair Jug project? I’ve been mulling this one over myself for a diorama, but it’d be a hell of a job:

My Dad did depot repair test pilot duty in Richmond before he went oversees. A Jug he was test flying suddenly lost the outer half of the right wing from the flap/aileron joint out! Bang! Gone! Remarkably, the plane was still stable at high speed, but if he let go to bail out, it snap-rolled. So he tried to belly in at high speed.

But he had to cut the throttle to set it on the runway. The instant he did, the plane snap-rolled, slammed belly-down on the runway, and continued to try to snap-roll down the runway, shedding empennage all the way. (Dad remembers going under a parked C-47’s nose and wiping out an air stair along the way) (and of course he reflexively kept trying to steer all the way). The Jug piled into the railway embankment at the end of the runway and accordioned.

The only thing left was the engine, cockpit and Dad. He’d cracked his skull on the gunsight, but wasn’t otherwise hurt. When they pulled him out of the wreck he was delerious and still trying to cut the switches.

I actually have the joystick grip from that Jug - well, the top half that broke off in his hand, anyway :D.

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Wow, awesome work Steve!
Lee

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Thanks fellas!

JGUIGNARD,

Man that just bummed me out. Whenever I hear about the passing of one of these guys I get into a bit of a funk. I guess this is strange timing, huh?

And yeah, the markings are available on Superscale sheet 48-586, I think that’s the #. His name is mis-spelled on the sheet, however. It was spelled with two “T’s”, Battista?

I too am looking forward to the Tamiya bubbletops, but I have to build my Hasegagme kits first!

Erush,

I don’t have too much in the way of good shots of the pit. My Kodak POS000 is only a little over a year old, but I’m finding that it’s not even a close match for my “real” cameras as regards close-ups. I’m trying to get some more photos posted, but my photo host is all funkified right now. I may have to get me-self a diff host…

John P,

Sounds like you could write a book based on all your Dad’s adventures!!

I’ll try and post some other shots, including a close-up of the nose art. And I’ll try to get some good close shots of the cockpit, Erush. Just don’t know if I’ll be able to get anything good…

Fade to Black…

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OUTSTANDING!!! VERY NICE WORK, GREAT KIT.

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Very, very nice job on the T-bolt. slick job! :slight_smile: - Ed

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B-wolf. What is your next depot maintenance project? It would be hard to out do the JUG. good looking midel, all the way.

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Steve:

I found out about Leo’s passing by accident - at a forum at the Hyperscale site. One of the fellows who posts there was a neighbor and friend of Leo’s. Per the mis-spelling of his name, in a couple of books on the 56th FG as well as Study 85 it is listed as “Butiste” but “Battista” is correct.

Maybe I will go ahead and use a Hasegawa D30/D40 kit to do Leo’s airplane, since it has all of the goodies necessary for an “M” except for the engine and prop.

Jim

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Sweet sweet jug man. I’d really like to see some good pics of the detail on it sometime.

madda

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[8D] Hope you can get some good ones!

Eric

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Alrighty, then…

My photo host is back to Code 1 (for now) and here’s a couple more shots. I still can’t get any decent close-ups of the cockpit, but I’m trying!

Oh, BTW. There’s two things that I haven’t fully fixed yet, if you can spot 'em, well, you don’t get a prize or anything…

Fade to Black…

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Very nice job, congratulations, that is an awesome plane, doesnt seem to be a monogram any more! :slight_smile:

My best regards
Hector Reymundo

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BW- Excellent work, may be we should send our depot projects to you. really outstanding work.

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Nice bird for all its been through. You think two years os along time for not finishing a model i have a Dale Ernhart nascar that i bought in 1990 and its still not finished.

ps. like the paint job