I have been busy at the bench to start this year. Late last year I came across a photograph of a P-40F/L belonging to the 325th Fighter Group in North Africa, known more commonly as the “Checkertail Clan” after the distinctive yellow-and-black checkertail scheme painted on their tails. I happen to love the P-40, so I actually have quite a few unbuilt kits in my stash, of which this Squadron Products release was one.
The kit came in a bag with a decent rendition of the original kit instructions and some kind of statement that it was number x of y total of this release. What I came to find was that this kit began life as the AMT-Ertl P-40E released back in the mid-1990s. There was a problem here, though. The fuselage included in this “E” was of the “long” variety, which per my research was never an “E” model. The elongated fuselage was introduced in the “F” variant to accomodate [aviation/flying issues] brought on by a different engine.
My inspiration was to build the Checkertail Clan Warhawk, so clearly this was exactly what I wanted. Except that prior to even looking at this kit, I had purchased via eBay an actual AMT-Ertl P-40F which, when I opened the box, noted it did not contain the “F” fuselage. So the idea of putting together a single P-40 quickly morphed into building two Warhawks. All I had to do was swap the fuselage parts.
Anyway, this Squadron release contained resin parts for the air scoop that is common for early variants of the P-40. That scoop is not on the “F” variant, which is what this so-called “E” release actually came with. There also are resin parts that upgraded the cockpit quite nicely from the original kit parts. Squadron’s decal sheet is good although a few of them resisted all my efforts at getting them into place. I eventually won that particular battle, though.
I built the ride of Colonel Robert L. Scott of the 23rd Fighter Group operating out of China in the Summer of 1942. I always loved the insignia on this warbird with the flying tiger ripping through the Chinese insignia and the ripped apart Japanese banner.
The kit itself is not great. People talk down the old Monogram P-40 a lot but I found that this AMT-Ertl kit was just a real PITA. It has good detail overall but fit of the parts is not great. I was unable to get any real dihedral established for the wings on this one (not so on the “F” that I built alongside this one). I loathed the connectors for the gear doors. Way too obtrusive because they are big, fat blobs of plastic. No detailing there at all. Some of that may very well be builder error but I won’t be rushing out to acquire any additional AMT-Ertl Warhawks (would not be prudent given the existence of a couple of old Monogram, a Monogram Pro-Modeler, a 32nd scale Revell, and two of the new Airfix “B” variants already in my stash)…
[Build Photos]
Paints are Model Master with weathering from Tamiya weathering compounds and Flory wash.
I am disappointed with the pictures here. Too many dark areas that I could not seem to get enough light into. Not sure what that is the case.