What if the Thunderbirds...

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
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…were founded in 1948 instead of 1953? Would they have flown Mustangs? Maybe. Possibly. Probably. This is what I imagined the airplanes would have looked like at airshows back then.

The kit is the Tamiya P-51D, 8th AF kit. The decals are Warbirds Thunderbird P-51D decal set. The paint is AK Xtreme Metal Polished Aluminum.

The build was straight forward OOB except for the decals. This was my second attempt at this build. The first became a camouflaged P-51 when the gloss black primer didn’t go well. Anyway, the decals are very brittle and crack easily, especially along edges and around compound curves. I used up a lot of Solvaset to get the decals to snuggle down. As long as you don’t examine the airplane too closely, it looks great…lol. So, anyway, here it is: The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds P-51D…

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Nice very sharp a real show plane.

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Beautiful job, Frank! As a big fan of intelligent “what ifs,” this one is top notch…both as an abstract concept, and as a gorgeous scheme for the Mustang.

Well done!

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Super cool…and BEAUTIFULLY done!

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WOW!

That is one extremely well executed concept scheme! I’m amazed.

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Very nice!

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Beautiful work

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Very nice, Frank. The Thunderbirds should be flying these now instead of those silly F-16’s[:D]

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You did a great job!

I had a fun time designing the schemes on that sheet and even made a bicentennial version.

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Nicely done! Warbird has also done a couple of other “WHIF” Thunderbirds, including the F-106 and F-35!

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Looks fantastic Frank

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Thanks. I still have a set of the decals for an F-84F and I have the decals for the Princess Elizabeth Mustang. I saw that airplane fly at the Gathering of Mustangs and Legends back on '07. I’ll be doing the Tamiya P-51B/C for those decals.

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Outstanding job! [t$t] [t$t] [t$t] Would look fantastic if they did it today.

Jim [cptn]

Stay Safe.

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There was an Air Force demo team before the Thunderbirds. I believe it was called the Acrojets. I believe they flew P-80s.

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Marvelous model. Such projects take a lot of time and thought. There’s a really nice BMF hiding in there too.

Don you are correct. Unfortunately the P-80 just didn’t have much acceleration.

The Acrojets feature as the central flyers in the 1951 movie “Air Cadets”.

Bill

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Utterly plausible. And excellent execution. Well done! [Y]

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SHARP AND BEAUTIFUL !

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Thanks, Don. Did a Google search and found this brief history: https://aerobaticteams.net/en/teams/i16/Acrojets.html

Another reason for another build. The article discusses the team flying the F80A and F-80C and finally the T-33. I guess I’m going to have to find a couple more kits and build a couple of Acrojets.

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I googled Acrojets too, and found a big long list of military aerobatic teams, including the Skyblazers, whose Sabres were released as kits- I have one of those in my stash.