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Captain John B. England's P-51B Mustang, 362nd FS, 357th FG.


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John Brooke England enlisted in the Army in April 1942 and was accepted into flight training, graduating in March of 1943.  After starting on the P-39 with the 357th, he would transition to the P-51 upon landing in England in November of 1943. The 357th first combat mission came on February 11th 1944 with an escort mission for bombers striking at V1 sites in Northern France.  England would score his first victory a month later on March 8th when he shot down a Bf 109 near Steinhunder Meer. He would become an Ace 48 days later. In August he was transferred to command the 362nd FS and would end the war there as it's commanding officer with 17.5 victories and 2 damaged. He would later add one more damaged to that tally, hitting a MiG 15 over Korea in January 1952. In 1954 after returning from a training mission, he ran out of fuel attempting to land in bad weather at Toul AFB and was killed in the crash. Alexandria AFB was renamed England AFB in his honour.

 

The kit is the older Hasegawa P-51, it has inaccurate dept in the wheel wells, but oh well. I picked it up pretty cheap at a swap meet many years ago and it's just been kicking around the stash, but what the hell, I might as well break it out for this GB. I've been trying to build some of those stash queens that have been around for years.

 

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Made a start today after cooking the BBQ for new years. 

 

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Some paint on the interior, I don't bother much with the small details in 1/72, you will hardly see anything once the canopy goes on apart from the basic colours. 

 

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Lower wing fit is really nice. It looks like the top wing will fit just as well, but that's enough for today. Nice to start the year off with a good little Hasegawa kit.

 

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Upper wings clamped, so far so good.

 

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Tail fits nicely.

 

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Ran into some issues here. The front of the radiator intake was solid, looks like slag had filled it in, so that had to be drilled out. I also put the inner gear doors in the up position, I know not technically incorrect just not often seen like this. It hides the very shallow gear bays mostly.

 

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 If I'm not mistaken, as long as the flaps are up those gear doors should be up. The hydraulic pressure that holds both up fades after time and flaps & doors drop.

 

 And seeing your progress I have to ask-is it done yet?

😀

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6 hours ago, WymanV said:

 If I'm not mistaken, as long as the flaps are up those gear doors should be up. The hydraulic pressure that holds both up fades after time and flaps & doors drop.

 

 And seeing your progress I have to ask-is it done yet?

😀

 

Ah ok good, I knew it had something to do with the hydraulic pressure. Haha not done yet, was busy watching Australia get smashed all around the ground in the cricket today and besides, it was 43C painting was out of the question.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks nspreitler. With the weather a little cooler (going to be 40C later this week) I got some more painting done.The olive drab went on well.

 

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Now masking for the white in the invasion stripes. I did the fuselage and wings separately.

 

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That worked well. There is a little bit of overspray but I'll fix that up later.

 

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