1/72 Academy P-40N "Burma Banshee"

This is my last build for 2019. It is Academy's 1/72 P-40N. My Niece got this for me Christmas 2018. I wanted to make this special. After months of planning what I wanted to do with it I decided to make it one of the Burma Banshee's P-40's. I chose to do the "White 27" of the 88th FS/ 80th FG based in Karachi, India in 1944. I always like the P-40 and many of them have the shark mouth nose. The Burma Banshee's all used large skulls on the nose making them unique looking. This will be mounted in a display case so that I can display it on my desk at work.
For detailing I purchased the photo etch set, a Merit acrylic display case, and a set of Rising Decals Burma Banshee's part II. The decal set includes 7 different aircraft from the 88th, 89th, and 92th fighter squadrons.
To start with I cut out the vents on the nose to add the more realistic photo etch versions. The side walls of the cockpit were then painted and detailed with photo etch accessories. The dash and seat was detailed and I installed the P-40N-5 rear cockpit section. The kit includes both the N-1 and N-5 sections so all 7 decal set aircraft can be built. The fuselage was assembled. I drilled out the gun barrels and added a brass pitot tube on the wing. The kit pitot looked way too large for the scale. I started to add the landing gear doors and the kit doors were way too thick. I used some sheet styrene and cut my own.
Next up will be the painting and decaling.
You can see all the photos and details in my build log at 1/72 P-40N "Burma Banshee"

Cool. Blows me away how you guys can get those 1:72 PE parts to work

Nice work so far!

Looks good

Moving on the fuselage was painted olive drab on top and neutral gray on the bottom. The Banshee's used a medium green to scallop the edges of the wings and tails. The decals were then applied. The Rising Decals went on very well. A little Microset and some Microsol helped get the large skull decals to conform to the nose. The only change I made was the pin-up of the "Flying Lady" used just behind the skull on the port side. The decal set had no details. It was more or less some colored dots. I located the correct image on Google then resized it t the fit the scale and made my own decal. The aircraft was then final coated with a matte finish. The canopy sections were installed and the rigging was done with EZ-Line. The base of the display case was then covered with a sand mat and weathered with pastel chalk for wheel marks and oil stains. The rear of the display base was then filled in with grass. These accessories were from the Scene-O-Rama set I have used in the past.






Finally I made a decal for the front of the display base and gave the acrylic cover a quick polish. It is now ready to be displayed on my desk at work at the start of the New Year!

See all the details from start to finish in the build log section 1/72 P-40N "Burma Banshee"

Beauty

A very nice model.

Yep, nicely done and presented.

Good work so far!

Agreed

That is one beautiful P40!