**** DONE: GB-50 1:48 P-38F-15-LO - Zombie Build

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I've just added this aircraft to my "to-do" list for when the Archives reopen. I'll pull the original on this one to get a better look at the serial. More critically, there's a second image (left side view) with members of the 27th lined up beside the aircraft - that's where I got the radio call and squadron codes when we first did the artwork of this aircraft in 1979. If I can find that image again, we'll know for sure if something went wrong when we did the artwork for AFC2.

I'm never sure we got everything right - other errors certainly crept in - but I'll try to sort this out one way or another. BTW, news reports suggest we'll be back in the Archives next month - I-hope-I-hope-I-hope. You might wnat to leave the radio call off until we get a firm answer!

Cheers,


Dana
 
Thanks Dana, I was about to hit my post button when I saw your response.

The identity of this particular a/c was discussed on the first page of my original build thread here and there's some detective work involving the visible construction number and some nose art details. I think the number 2166 is correct. This side view along with detective work on the nose nose details helped to convince me of the correct s/n:



As for red wing tips, I did a gamma correcting of the above pic and I think that we can say that, yes, the tips were a darker colour, presumably red:

 
Thanks Dana. When I started the build back in 2015, I referenced a web site that is now defunct. There was a lot of discussion there on the topic of 2136 vs 2166 so I decided to investigate for myself.

I might as well take the opportunity to provide a short update of very limited progress. The resin cowl looks good enough now but the rescribing and rivet addition still needs a bit of work.



On the underside, I added the pylons which are designed to have bombs attached. However, I will be removing the pegs and adding some detail to represent empty racks.

 
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Thanks Glenn. (fixed the last image and made it full size)

Note that the wheel wells are screaming for more detail but I don't think I'm going down that slippery slope for this build.
 
Well, waddayaknow....I have something to report. Turns out that the radios that I installed back in the day are probably wrong and so I grabbed the equipment deck with a pair of pliers and, with a mild twist, I got the part out with minimal effort. In the pic below, the part on the right is the one I removed and the one on the left is closer to what should be there - the SCR-522 set. That said, I checked the dimensions of the moulded boxes against dimensioned drawings for the SCR-522 and they are off a fair amount (especially the dynamotor which is the box at the very back) so I will cut the boxes off and fix them or make new.



Getting the floor and bulkhead back in will be tricky and so I got the idea to drill out the signal lamps on the bottom of the fuselage. I can use these holes to poke a stick into the space to help support the radio deck when setting it in place and then add some PVA over the holes later to finish the lights.



Back if and when I get more done.
 
Tonight I spent a couple of hours building up the area behind the seat. First, the basic deck and bulkhead were positioned and glued back into place. After sawing the radio boxes off the deck, the surface was a bit gouged so I simply covered the part with some very thin styrene sheet. The hole you see is where I had glued in a piece of stretched sprue that helped me position the deck along with poking at it from underneath via the signal light holes.



One thing I found out and that now bothered me was that the armoured plate behind the pilot's head was in fact sloped to the front rather than vertical as seen in the above photos and so I hacked the kit part off before I could change my mind and made a new plate using the old as a template. The head rest was punched from 1mm sheet styrene.



The rear bulkhead that is molded in with the kit part is actually too far back so I made a new one and added some stiffeners. Also added were some racks that will support the radio boxes. The new armour plate is fit loose for the picture below but you can see how it will make a difference. I also had to replace the seat belt rack with solder as it broke away when removing the kit plate.



I'm now looking at the crude seat belts that I made back in the day and may replace them or embellish them a bit before gluing the canopy on. Thanks again for following.
 
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