discussion 1/48 P-39N Airacobra

[Wendall]

The last plane I built was when I was eight years old. I say built but if I recall it was more like throw some glue and paint at it and hang it from the bedroom ceiling. I suspect that's how a lot of us started!!

Anyway, Whilst in my LMS picking up supplies they were reducing some of their kits. I grabbed this one before the ink dried, added a couple more pots of paint to my basket and walked out a happy chap.

Now I don't know a great deal about aircraft in general and I know nothing about the subject of this kit other than it's a Russian variant of a Bell? It saw action in WW2 and there don't seem to be many reference pictures. What I do know is that it's an Eduard Weekend; allegedly a simplified kit but the parts count is pretty high and to my eye the level of detail looks great.

Here are the sprue shots, is this a high part count for this scale kit?

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I made a start last night and it went together like a dream. The office was painted in Cockpit Green, some details picked out, given a dark wash and weathered. The decals responded really well to microsol and the seatbelt was made from Tamiya tape.

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Not sure if it will be possible to complete this kit in a weekend but I've got no plans so I'll have a crack at it.

Any hints, tips, comments or criticisms please. This is all new to me.

Jason

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[Guest]

Can't beat a good bargain, and it certainly looks good so far.

 

[PaulTRose]

one of my fave aircraft

make sure you put plenty of weight in the nose as far forward as you can get or it will be a tail sitter as it has tricycle undercarrige

the Russians liked the P39 as they got plenty by LendLease

 

[Guest]

Nice subject!

The cockpit looks excellent.

Cheers

 

[papa 695]

I have one of these Jason but it's the profipack so will watch how this goes together.

Nice start on the cockpit by the way

 

[Guest]

Cockpit is looking really good, just the right amount of weathering. Always great to pick up a bargain and really enjoy putting it together.

 

[Guest]

Very good cockpit, i should try an Eduard kit sooner or later.

Francesco

 

[yak face]

Excellent choice jason , its a really nice kit. The cockpit looks great , plenty of detail in there , the main difference between these weekend kits the profipack ones is these dont have the Photo etch or canopy masks, apart from that the plastic is the same. The cockpit certainly looks very nicely detailed to me , cheers tony

 

[Wendall]

Thanks for the comments Gents.

A special thanks to Paul for the tip off about tail sitting!! I hadn't even considered it, luckily I read the post just before I sealed the fuselage up. So with every orifice forward of the wings stuffed with Blu Tac I glued body to wings. I had a few problems with the fit to be honest, not sure if it was my mistake or not but the bit where the wings meet the fuselage (is this the wing root??) didn't fit too well. I fitted the upper wing surfaces before the fuselage and had a pretty big gap especially on the left (port??). I was wondering if that is the correct order of assembly or if it is better to fit the fuselage first? Anyway that sorted with a strip of styrene and some putty everything else was fine.

Primed in some Halfords white because that's what I had.

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Now I ponder the top coat! What is the consensus on pre-shading? It's not a technique I've ever tried but think it looks effective sometimes and sometimes it can look overdone.

From an accuracy point of view would this aircraft have seen lots of action, thus being well worn and weathered?

Thanks for looking, any advice gratefully received.

Jason

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[Guest]

Well for a start I thought from the title this was a helicopter (read it as air cobra) .... Yep I'm a plank!

Never seen or heard of this aircraft so my interest is sparked.

Like what you've done so far mate, I've had a few goes at flying things but not really happy with results so its nice to see someone making a good job of a subject they don't normally build.

 

[flyjoe180]

Looks good Jason.

 

[Wendall]

Thanks Colin, Joe.

To be honest I'm really struggling to work out the right order in which to do things. obviously there are the instructions but its which bits to paint in advance and which to paint after assembly that has me stumped. I also primed the canopy in white first of all so needed to redo that.

Anyway I think I'm getting there, here it is painted, I did try pre-shading and then put too much paint on and covered it all up again so hey ho.

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Gonna start weathering it next.

Jason

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[Guest]

funny thing is i do the same,my fear is there isnt enough colour on the plane lol,however its looking good

mobear

 

[Guest]

Looking good Jason.

I'm wishing to see what kind of weathering you do.

Regards

 

[PaulTRose]

i gave up on preshading ages ago, never seemed to work, always vanished under the top coat