Best 1/72 P51 Kit

Hi

Just after any views on the best 1/72nd Mustang kit & detail sets available.

Cheers

Reply to
k&L
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I think you should consider the Tamiya P-51D together with an Aires resin detail set N°7079, this has full cockpit, gun bays, engine & mount and wheelbays, should be a good start ;-)

Erik Wauters, Belgium

"k&L" schreef in bericht news:bruef9$5ql$ snipped-for-privacy@au-nws-0001.flow.com.au...

Reply to
Erik Wauters

With respect to the D model, the new Tamiya kit is considered by most to be the best, followed by the later issue Hasegawa kit. Some folks still like the old Hasegawa kit. I have a few of these and they are nicely done. There are several newer B/C kits, Revell of Germany, Academy and Hasegawa come to mind. All are beautifully molded. I think the consensus is that they all suffer from having the D wing instead of the correct B/C wing. There may be a resin wing that corrects the defect. If you don't care about the wing they are all nice. Many feel the old Monogram kit still has the best overall wing accuracy. Maybe Tamiya will do one in the future. There are a few P-51A/A-36 versions as well, Italeri, Condor, Frog and maybe one or two others. Again the wing profiles are questionable. It may be the Condor kit that is best, IIRC. Take a look at the Modelingmadness, Hyperscale and Internetmodeler website galleries. I'm sure you'll find reviews and pics of these kits.

hth Ron

Reply to
OSTIAANTIC

My Highplanes Mustang X is the reigning bench queen for me--two years now. A very tough kit, though I can't knock the shape.

Mark Schynert

Reply to
Mark Schynert

For Allison-powered Mustangs, I have not seen the High Planes but the Model News has quite good shape accuracy, including the correct wing. It is a rough kit to build, probably similar to the High Planes. Building either of these kits would be made easier by buying the Revell Mustang III as a cheap source of well-molded detail parts. Avoid the Italeri - not one single part of it is accurate.

Reply to
August Horvath

Heh. That's putting it mildly. Internet Modeler should have all its back issues on line fairly soon - look for my build of the MN A-36 from a couple years ago....

Reply to
Al Superczynski

For my moolah, the best 1:72 Mustangs are:

A-36/P-51A/F-6A: Condor/MPM P-51B/C: Academy P-51D: Tamiya

I should have the Academy P-51B done shortly--the wing doesn't have the D shape to the inboard leading edge, but like the Revell of Germany P-51B, it does have that patch of backed-out fasteners on each wing--what is the deal with that?

--Chris Bucholtz

Reply to
Chris Bucholtz

Chris,

I would agree with your "best kit" listing except that the Academy kit has that very questionable large rectangular hole in the bottom of the wing where the spent casing ejection chutes should be. I do not "know" that it is wrong as I have not yet found the definitive picture of the undersurface of a P-51B/C, but I lean very heavily toward it being much the same as the D/K, just one less gun in each wing.

Since I am using my own resin wing with the flaps down, that does not concern me much. I also had concerns about the fit of the separate aft fuselage, but the one I am currently building went together very well.

With regards to the D/K versions. I suspect that built and on the shelf, no one would be able to tell the Tamiya from the Hasegawa without very close scrutiny. The real difference is rather surprising; the price. In Japan, the Tamiya kit costs about $9.00 and some change, while the Hasegawa kit is rather more expensive. Here in the good ole US of A the prices are flip flopped and the Tamiya kit cost more.

Norm

Reply to
Norm Filer

Norm Filer writes,

"With regards to the D/K versions. I suspect that built and on the shelf, no one would be able to tell the Tamiya from the Hasegawa without very close scrutiny."

Here's the big difference: The nose. The top of the cowling on a real Mustang is round, which the Tamiya (and Academy, and Revell) Mustangs get right. The Hasegawa cowling top is square. The two things that pointed this out to me: a flight in a Mustang, where the nose is readily apparent, and the attempt to mask the anti-glare panel on a Hasegawa kit. That square nose prohibits you from getting a panel that looks right from the side AND from above--you can get one or the other, but not both.

--Chris Bucholtz

Reply to
Chris Bucholtz

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