1/48 Hasegawa P-40E, “Dad’s P-40”

Gallery Article by Brian Duddy on Jan 20 2011

 

This is a P-40 from the 98th Fighter Squadron, 337th Fighter Group (3rd Air Force) at Sarasota Army Air Field, Florida.  Construction is based on actual wartime photos.

The aircraft is a stock Hasegawa P-40E with a few additions.

  • Ultracast seat and block pattern tires

  • Ultracast P-40 flared (“fishtail”) exhausts

  • Avionix cockpit parts

  • Eduard photo-etch P-40E set

I have a few old B&W photos from my Dad when he was a crew chief on P-40s at Sarasota AAF in 1943-1944.  His unit was the 98th Fighter Squadron, a replacement training unit that trained new fighter pilots for duty overseas.  The unit had P-40s up until early 1944, when they switched over to P-51s.  He was sent to P-51 mechanics school at North American in early 44.  The photos show the P-40s with the red stripe around the national insignia repainted in blue, so they were taken in late 43 or very early 44.  It is not clear from the photos which model of P-40 they were operating – only that they were either E or K models.  I built the model with all the distinctive features I could make out from the photos (exhaust, tires, antenna).    The stock cockpit for this model was quite good – in fact I used several of the kit parts vs. the aftermarket resin I bought since they seemed more accurate and durable.   I was less impressed with the complex rear fuselage and turtleback assemblies.  It seemed needlessly over-engineered and (for me) required a lot of filling and sanding even with a fair amount of dry-fitting and advanced planning. 

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Finishing was a cornucopia of materials and techniques.  I used Testor’s Dark OD for the upper surfaces faded with Field Drab, along with a composite mixture of medium green for the splotches.  The undersurfaces were painted with slightly faded Testor’s Neutral Gray.  Then the upper surfaces were painted with the medium green.  These areas were masked over with BlueTac to give a softer edge, then the rest of the upper half was sprayed with several shades of faded OD.   Then I took my first leap into Future topcoats before weathering began.  This was a mixture of artist’s oils and Vallejo acrylics.  Gun smoke stains were also black artist oil paint, which, by using a wide bristle brush, can go on lighter than most other types of paints and works better for stains and runs.  I Futured the canopy as well, for the first time.  A little scary at first but everything worked out.  The whole thing got a coat of Dullcote when finished.

I kludged (Air Force expression) the decals together from an old Microscale (?) P-51 set No. 48-138 (national insignia with painted out red lines); a Superscale P-40N set No. 48-1024  (serial numbers and stencil data); and a Squadron sheet of white US letters and numbers.  Other than the nose numbers, there are no other distinctive markings as this was a stateside training unit and not predisposed to “nose art” or other decorations.  Aircraft from a particular training base had a single letter, followed by a individual airplane number on the nose below the exhaust and forward of the wing.

The diorama of Sarasota AAF, circa 1943 was based on the wartime photo.  It includes the well-made Tamiya “Follow Me” Jeep as well as excellent Tamiya pilot figures from the USN Deck Crew set.  The Jeep kit has a bonus which is the canvas top.  Other figures are converted from Diorama Studio and Hasegawa, with a few old Monogram ground crewmen thrown in as an homage to the Shep Paine dioramas of my youth.  Hardly anyone does models of stateside or training aircraft, so this is one unusual P-40 to be found without the “shark mouth!”

Brian Duddy

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Photos and text © by Brian Duddy