Hey Everybody,
This is my first post on the A/C forum. I finished this one this past weekend and thought I’d put it up here. It’s Hasegawa’s 1/48 P-51D with Eagle Strike decals. The checkers were a challenge but I think it came out OK…
AirBorne…!
Hey AB… welcome to the forum. That looks real nice. And your checkeboard decals turned out great. Someone needs to have a chat with the maintenance chief… there is a lot of planes leaking oil[(-D]
Welcome to the Forums Airborne [#welcome]. Very nice work on the Stang. The NMF looks real good & the decals came out well. Only nit from here would be of a technical nature. When the flaps were full up on a parked aircraft, the inner wheel bay doors would be in the closed position. On the Hasegawa kit, those doors don’t fit in the closed position without major surgery. One of the reasons that I prefer the 1/48 Tamiya kit, that has flaps that can be easily posed in the dropped position.
Regards, Rick
Nice work on the Mustang. The panel lines are a bit heavy for my taste.
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Good stuff, AB! I like the aircraft AND the base…very nice work. Looking forward to more of your stuff
Rick:
A respectful but dissenting opinion on the Mustang’s inner gear doors. Whether they are up or down depends on how long it has been since the airplane had run. As hydraulic pressure bleeds down after engine shutdown the doors fall open. Flaps do not bleed down but are frequently seen in the down position on the ground to make it easier to get in out of the cockpit.
I would have to agree, I have seen this on mustangs sitting at the airport for only a few hours.
Nice looking dove. welcome to the forum.
Thad
Nice build. I never get tired of seeing Mustangs.
John:
The flaps & inner doors were both on the same hydraulics. As the hydraulic pressure bled off, both the flaps & doors would gradually drop. They did not always drop at the same rate, so you can see examples where one door is lower than the other, or the flaps are not fully down with the doors down, but you won’t find a pic of a parked WWII vintage Stang with the flaps full up & the gear doors down, at least I don’t have one in my collection of 100’s of pics. If you have one, I’d appreciate the reference. The flaps could be forced down by hand, so I have seen pics with the flaps down & doors up, but not the other way around. On restored aircraft seen at airshows, it’s hard to tell if they still have the vintage configuration, but as I understand, most don’t.
Regards, Rick
This (respectfully) is incorrect. Flaps and gear doors are in the same Hydraulic loop. Flaps will “bleed” down.[:)]
The other issue I see with the model is the props. As we say around the farm “somethin ain’t right” as far as the pitch position. The overspray along the antiglare panel could be touched up as well.
regards,
Steve
I just barley built one except it was a revell your checkers came out better than mine did.
Nicely done![tup]
I think the prop pitch looks ok but I’ve never liked the cuffs on the blades. They are the wrong shape and over exaggerated. Not a fault of the builder though.
Thanks everybody,
Yeah that’s the only detail I didn’t quite like about this kit. Hasegawa molded the prop blades seperately, to be installed after the spinner assy was mounted on the model. There’s a little locator key on the back of the blades’ “pin” that limits the blades pitch. And, now that somebody said it I do realize that I bumped the bottom blade in a bit prior to taking the picture making it appear “not right…”.
A thousand apologies sir… but thanks for the great responses
AirBorne…!
If your gonna build a P-51, you gotta use the resin prop from Ultracast. Both Tamiya And Hasegawa got it wrong. !st pic isthe real deal and hte second is the resin prop i used on a build
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John,
You are correct on the hydraulics bleeding down after shutdown however the doors go back shut, not open.
Others have commented about the flaps bleeding down which may be the case however I grabbed the first book I found (Squadron’s 4th FG in WWII) and there are several photos of 51s with both flaps and gear doors in the up position. Maybe they bleed off at different rates?? To your point, with the position of the hand hold and the step on the wing root I don’t see how the flap position affected the ease of getting in to the cockpit.
Pat
I can only comment on my experience around Mustangs, which is at air shows and in and around one that a friend owned a part of. I have watched the gear doors slowly sag down after shutdown, but I’ve never noticed flaps bleeding down. I’ve also seen the doors close up right after engine start, and there is nothing in the cockpit that would allow the pilot any control over that. Perhaps there was a postwar modification on the flaps that stopped them from dropping, or it could also be that I am just not observant enough. As for flaps being down making it easier to get in the airplane, that’s just something I heard, it could be people do that to keep from stepping on the flap, which is a no no.
I haven’t complimented the builder on his model, so I should do that, it’s well done and the markings are of a nice subject .
I apologize to Airborne for mentioning the gear doors. I didn’t meen to send his Thread off in a different direction. I am a bit surprized by the confusion on the doors/flaps as it’s a topic well researched & has been discussed several times before on this Forum. As I said in an earlier post, you can’t make judgements on vintage aircraft based on what you may observe on privately owned restored aircraft, just as you can’t trust colors/markings seen on aircraft in museums. Lots of things are changed in the restoration process in order to meet modern Regulations & Standards.
The normal position of the inner wheel doors on the WWII era P-51D was closed. They only opened during landing gear extension or retraction & closed automatically as soon as the landing gear was down or up. They were hydraulically operated & shared the same hydraulic system as the flaps. After landing, the flaps were normally set in the full up position & the inner gear doors were closed. The majority of vintage photographs of parked Stangs show the flaps up & doors closed. Since the hydraulics were pressurized by the running engine, after a period of time on a parked aircraft with the engine off, the hydraulic pressure would gradually bleed down allowing both the doors & flaps to begin to drop down. It might take hours or days, but eventually both doors & flaps would be full down. There are also lots of vintage photographs that show the doors & flaps both down. But I’ve never seen a vintage photograph showing the flaps up & the doors full down. If anyone has one, I’d love to see it.
Regards, Rick
I’m with ya here. This aligns with my own refs and experiance.