P-40N flown by Don Quigley, 23rd FG

[Mark Joyce]

Just finished this one in time for the new year.  The markings are for the P-40N flown by Major Donald Quigley of the 75th FS/23rd FG.  Major Quigley scored his 5th victory on 5 August '44, but just a few days later was shot down by ground fire while flying this airplane and spent the rest of the war as a POW.  

This is the 48th scale Hasegawa kit.  Enough has been said about these kits, but one thing I noticed while building it are a couple inaccuracies for a P-40N (for instance, I don't believe it had the formation lights on the fuselage just forward and below the cockpit).  

I need to work more on my weathering.  Much of what I did seems to have disappeared under the clear coats.

Anyway, thanks for looking and a Happy New Year to all!

(Yikes, just realized I have the sliding canopy backwards in the photographs!)



Mark

[Vince_M]

Hi Mark,

That's a beauty for sure!  I also want to do one with the medium green dapples around the wings and stabilizers.  Although I have not built up any 1/48 Hasegawa kits, I feel that they captured the external shape better than anyone else.  Anything else, I can live with.  I have to say that I like the AMT kits though as they are not bad and are simple in design.

Hasegawa's old 1/72 kit is still the best Kittyhawk and their new 1/32 is the best too in that scale...

[Mark Joyce]

Thanks Vince,

I'm thinking about weathering it a bit more, if I get energetic enough!

I too like the AMT kits...much easier for me to build even if they aren't quite as accurate or detailed as the Hasegawa ones.  I have a couple of Hasegawa's 32nd scale in my stash, and although I've not built one yet I've heard that the fit issues in regard to the plugs and inserts are magnified over the 48th scale kits due to the larger scale.

I'm currently also building one of Hasegawa's 72nd P-40Ns.  It is one nice kit that goes together easily.

Mark

[Vince_M]

Mark,

One thing bad about the 1/72 Hasegawa Kittyhawk is that the exhausts are too high.  It's almost as if the guy designing it thought he was doing a P-40B.  Anyway they are too high by about the width of the opening for the exhausts.  So I just filed them off and filled the gap with putty.  Then I had to carve a new hole on each side.  You can see in my show off thread where it looks much better and more accurate.
One other fault is at the wing root fairing in the front.  They appear to have forgotten about the extra "hump" on the insides of the landing gear fairings.  So at the last minute they added the hump by making the wing root fairing thinner.  Take a look.  I had to fill mine with putty and rebuild the "hump".

Vince

[P-40 Admin]

Great job on the build!  Love the markings and color scheme, different than the normal!

[Mustanger]

Brilliant 'N model. Very nicely done.