1/48 Tamiya Mustang Collection

by Kai Peters

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You may think: "That German guy really is a Mustang-Maniac!" and you´re absolutely right: I am!

I do not exactly know why I´m so in love with this aircraft but from the moment I first saw my uncle´s 1/32 Hasegawa P-51D model I was mad about this ship!

About 3 years ago I started to build models again after a time out of about 5 years or so. During this 3 years I have completed 16 Mustangs in markings of my favourite Fighter Groups: the 4th "the Eagles", 352nd "the Blue-Nosed Bastards of Bodney and the 357th "the Yoxford Boys".

To not overwhelm you all with an article about every single Mustang, I will show you 3 of my Tamiya´s in this very article.

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First is the very first 1/48 Tamiya Mustang I built.

It´s the P-51B kit finished as the more than well known "Shangri La", Don Gentile´s kite, which he belly landed in front of waiting journalists during a hotshot-lowpass over the Debden airfield.

The kit is completely OOB and handbrushed. (It`s embarrassing to say, but I STILL got no airbrush....) Colors are as much as I recall from Revell and Tamiya, decals came with the kit and although very thick nicely printed!

Second is Tamiya´s P-51D kit finished as "Petie 3rd", Lt.Col. John Meyer´s last Mustang, which he flew during "The Legend of Y-29" on January, 1st 1945 when the German JG11 attacked the airfield at Asch, Belgium where the 487th FS of the 352nd FG was stationed at that time. Meyer shot down 2 FW190s that day.

This one´s also built OOB but I used the beautiful EagleStrike decals from one of the decal-sheets that they produced for the 352nd FG. (Thanks very, very much, ES!"

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Last but not least one more D-Model: Capt. Charles "Chuck" Yeager´s "Glamorous Glenn III". Yeager´s last Mustang in which he downed 5 Bf109s an October, 12th and 4 FW190s on November, 27th 1944.

Well, I´d like to say something else, but this kit went out OOB, too. I was glad Tamiya rereleased it´s P-51D kit with new markings for the 357th FG and I got mine over ebay from an Austrian trader, cause here in Germany swastikas are absolutely forbidden by law and that even affects us modelers, cause the killmarks with swastikas are cut off the decals sheets! Anyway, I got mine with swastikas and I´m very happy how this plane came out!

Hope you like them, too!

Best wishes from Germany,

Kai 

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Photos and text © by Kai Peters