I've only ever seen two
tiny photos of this aircraft so there are a couple of
details I may be wrong about. One is the canopy. My understanding
of the P-51K was that it differed from a 'D' by it's Aeroproducts
propellor and the "Dallas" style canopy - a
slight bulge at the rear as opposed to the smooth taper
of the standard bubble canopy. It's very hard to tell
from the pics I've seen, but it looks to me like this
aircraft didn't have the "Dallas" canopy
which is how I've modelled it. It did have the Aeroproducts
prop however. As far as I know, the Brits made no distinction
between a 'D' and a 'K' - they were both Mustang IVs,
so I'm not sure if this was manufactured as a 'K' or was
one of the 'D's that was retrofitted with the different
prop. Or perhaps it did have the "Dallas" canopy
and I just can't tell from the miniscule photos. And then
again, does it really matter all that much?
There was a letter in an
issue of "Scale Aircraft Modelling" many years
ago from a fellow who claims to have actually seen this
aircraft at the end of the second world war. He states
that he recorded the colours at the time and that the
horizontal blue stripe and lower canopy frame were actually
yellow. This is the only reference I have seen to claim
that and I have to wonder why he waited over 50 years
to dispute the colour scheme of this well known aircraft.
It seems that this claim has been taken as gospel ever
since then by decal and kit manufacturers, and profile
artists, as KM272 is now almost universally depicted with
yellow stripes and canopy frame. Again, it's hard to tell
from the tiny b & w photos I've seen, but it really
looks to me like the stripe is the same as the blue of
the spinner and chequered nose band (documented as squadron
colours) and a different shade from the yellow on the
leading edges of the wings. In other words, I'm not going
to rush to repaint this on the basis of one comment of
dubious authenticity. As Capt. John Earle (played by actor
Richard Anderson) said in "Tora! Tora! Tora!",
"Confirmation dammit, I want confirmation!".
Hasegawa's original Mustang
kit is fairly awful by modern standards but it does have
one thing going for it: nice deep wheel wells. Hasegawa
then released this Mustang from completely new moulds.
It is a lovely kit, on par with any of their later releases,
and features an accurate shape and fine recessed panel
lines. It also features wheel wells that are so shallow
you'd be hard pressed to retract a sheet of paper into
them, let alone the landing gear. Fortunately their old
Mustang is still quite easy to find and at bargain prices
and this can serve as a wheel well donor, which is what
I did here. I cut a section out of the wings on both kits
from the leading edge back to the panel line just behind
the wells and swapped the shallow wells for the deep ones.
A bit of filler is neccesary to match up the shapes and
some plastic will have to be removed from the inside of
the top wing piece in order to get the new (old) wheel
wells to fit, but it's a fairly easy job. The fact remains
however, that I shouldn't have to do this! If their old
kit has deep wells, then why doesn't this newer one?!
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