1/32 Tamiya P-51D Mustang

Cripes A’Mighty 3rd George Preddy

Gallery Article by Mauricio Castro on July 9 2014

 

G Day folks, 
Being this a very special time of the year (D-Day) I would like to make a special tribute to Major George Preddy by modelling one of his famous mounts. 

This is the P-51D Cripes A’Mighty 3rd, HO-P, factory serial number 44-13321. Among a batch of brand new P-51Ds assigned to 352nd FG that month, Major Preddy took command of this ship and flew it for the first time 14th June 1944. This was the 3rd aircraft that “Ratsy” named Cripes A’Mighty.

This aircraft was a P-51D early version without fin fillet and no aerial wire. Full D-Day invasion stripes wrapped around fuselage and wings. Single black colour stripes along the Hstab chord. The letter P of squadron code was painted on the Vstab due to the presence of invasion stripes.

 

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I used 1/32 Tamiya P-51D which includes the option of the fin without fillet. Reference pictures show that tires were with hexagonal threads, then I used advise the Barracuda tires with the kit’s hubs, the interface of the barracuda hubs with the kit landing gear leg axled don’t match. 

Decals are from EagleCals EC#100 “The P-51 Mustangs of Major George Preddy” which includes a beautiful booklet with excellent reference pictures about Preddy’s mounts. Details here above are from this booklet.

I’m using as well as a reference the book “Building the P-51 Mustang" of Michael O’Leary about the story of manufacturing North American P-51. This is an excellent source of technical information about all the variants produced by North American. 

I step on new ground with Alclad II though I’m quite satisfied with the results, different shades were applies on different panels as reference pictures depict. 

Wings were painted with Tamiya AS-12 trying to represent the non naturalized aluminum finish as seen in the rest of the fuselage and fuel cells covers underneath the centre section of the wings. 

Very well explained in Michael O’Learys book, the fact that wings extrados and intrados were factory puttied in the first 40% of the wing chord length due to aerodynamic constraints, hence treated with different coats of primers an silver lacquers.

I enjoyed this project very much, that I was some how sad when I finished it, I think most modellers will understand that empty feeling when finishing a fun project.

Cheers

Mauricio Castro

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Photos and text © by Mauricio Castro