ghodges Posted September 9, 2017 Report Share Posted September 9, 2017 I bought this because the kit is uniquely engineered. HobbyBoss molded the entire wings/fuselage/booms/tailplane in a 2 part upper/lower assembly. I found this to be a much easier build than the Monogram, Hasagawa, or Academy P-38s as it eliminates the need to align the booms with the wings and the tailplanes. The overall fit was good to very good. The model itself is a good (but not great) kit of the Lightning. I can't speak to overall accuracy (I'm no rivet counter) but it has a good cockpit and well appointed wheel wells. The weakest part of the kit is the tires (no tread, soft hub detail), so I sawed in some tread to enhance them a bit. The best part of the kit is a very good fitting one piece canopy, in addition to the separate parts to display it open. Thus, this is my first closed canopy P-38! Another weak area are the props, which appear a bit too rounded and fat. I substituted some old Monogram props from the spares box instead of trying to correct the kit ones. Oddly, the only real omission in the kit is the lack of a landing light. There's none for the under the wing or the wing leading edge (depending on if you want an L or a J) so I had to cut a slot in the wing and add one. The rest of the clear parts are quite nice, and HobbyBoss even provides clear parts for the IFF lights under the fuselage. The kit comes with a choice of rockets (on the "tree" launcher), 500lb bombs, or drop tanks. I chose bombs to go with the D-Day markings as it would have been supporting the invasion. The NMF is a combination of Tamiya TS-30 "Silver Leaf (spray can) and Alclad Aluminum. All of the other colors are MM enamels. The markings are from an old Super Scale International sheet that was printed for the IPMS San Antonio contest back in '96, and represents Robert McDermott's Lightning. I backdated them a bit by painting full invasion stripes instead of having them only on the bottom. The only trick here was I had to make masks for the side codes that would give each one a thin silver outline, but with some careful cutting it got done. The old decals performed like a champ! I did substitute stars from the spares box and the prop logos are Archer dry transfers. I found this to be a very enjoyable build, getting it done it just under 3 weeks. The way it's molded contributed greatly to making fast progress! Comments, questions, and critiques welcome! GIL :smiley16: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aAzZ09 Posted September 9, 2017 Report Share Posted September 9, 2017 Nice work Gil. I love the markings! Leading edge port wing landing lights ( and underwing dive flaps) first appeared on the P-38J-25-LO through the entire L models, and the M night fighter. Yours looks like a late J or Early L model. Keep up the good work! Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Deliduka Posted September 9, 2017 Report Share Posted September 9, 2017 Magnificent job Gil! That is one beautiful plane. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts