Done a bit to my Spit, all sealed and got paint on her now. If my camera was working properly, I would post some pics, but unfortunatley the kids got to it

Thanks! Gustav Rodel, Staffelkapitan for JG27, North Africa 1942. His plane is "White 8" I have found profile drawings of it, and pictures of him, but no pictures of the plane in service. Thanks for the help. "Q"

Ok, since I am having such difficulty finding pics for the entry I want to do, Gustav Rodels white 8 Bf-109F4 Trop, I am going to change gears and go with something I definitely have pics of. I can use the Bf-109 for the 109 campaign Terri us running so no foul there. Going to change to a P-51D marked as Big Beautiful Doll. I have several pics of her in service so no problem there. Pics to follow once I start making some progress. "Q"

Some great stuff in here gents... I was thinking of joining with the old 1:48 Revell P-38 (Bong's), but I see that Justin built an absolutelly gorgeous representation of that bird. Do you allow duplicates? I feel I have a "master teacher" in here and can shamelessly copy some of the techniques and hope mine comes out 10% as good as the two P-38s in this thread. and yes, I have another revell P-38 I will be doing for the twin Boom GB at the same time as the night fighter version; twice the fun! (pain?)
cheers

I have no problem with you building another Bong thats why they made more than one kit.Everyone should have one version of it or another he was a good pilot.




Build On,
Justin

Hi Hermon. It's looking good. Looking forward to seeing it done. I hope this build is healing some wounds. Wingman out.

Made a start to Roden's Fokker D.VII in 1/72. Will make it as Neckel's mount.

Not done much other than build the engine and decide not to use the PART fret!
Fit is awkward and I could do without the extra headaches. Lozenge will be from Almark decals

Here is engine, cockpit and instruments. To add lozenge to the seat, and some switches but
otherwise ready to be zipped up.

Getting my Spring projects lined up here.

Gonna go with an Accurate Miniatures 1/48 P-51B. Since this is an "aces" campaign, I ordered a decal sheet to depict Lt. Henry Brown's "Hun Hunter from Texas".




Cheers,
Fred

JOhn-Paul - Very nice work so far; look forward to the final product.

Fred - no such thing as too many Mustangs look forward to your build, that is a grea picture!

Fred, what does the profile give for the undersides.
I had done some research on WR-Z (for Burt Marshall's D-Day mount, same a/c though)
Seemed to point to RAF green over NMF, as the a/c was delivered NMF overall.
I'm no expert just gathered stuff found by others.

Thanks James,
Long way to go on this one the lower wing fit is notorious, and I didn't
believe it till I saw it! So I sawed it. In half. Very little in life
that can't be sorted with judicious use of a razor saw.

@ Jaypee:

Haven't got the decal set yet but the depictions of this bird so far definitely show a scheme a little different than your typical USAAF, ETO, OD painted kite.

Upper surfaces are some sort of _green_ drab (as opposed to brown drab). It wouldn't surprise me to know it is a British green. I don't know yet whether the under-surfaces are grey or natural. Upon more web surfing I found several more photos of the a/c. The general consensus is that it is natural finish on the underside (but I can't tell). The 354th seemed to have a fair amount of variation from plane to plane.(as others are brown drab and aircraft grey)

Of course without knowing more of the planes provenance I'm just speculating here. (It is worth noting that the above black and white photo definitely hints at a much darker green shade. If you compare it to photos of Don Gentile's "Shangri-La" its readily apparent.)


Here is a great color pic of another aircraft from the 354th (one I'd also consider building). Its named "Woody's Maytag" and it was flown by Capt. Robert Woody. Now this one does have the grey underside but I thought what was more interesting is the nice shot of the chromate yellow details in the wheel wells and the engine compartment. Another very cool detail is the dk green seat back visible through the canopy. and the 'spitfire' style rear view mirror above the windscreen.


Enjoy.


Cheers,
Fred

You'll be much better versed than me in this, but heres what I have anyway.

https://aeroscale.kitmaker.net/forums/122930&page=4

Most of my build of hunter is here. Just a quickie airfix 1/72 job.

Here are my bookmarks on p51 mostly hunhunter or oldcrow links.
The littlefriends.com pics are quite good for any 8th AF research.
http://delicious.com/jaypee/p51?page=1

http://www.network54.com/Forum/149674/thread/1252502421/P51B+Hun+Hunter~Texas
Interesting thread about this on hyperscale. Basically black bars on underside indicate NMF.
White indicate NG. Shame some of the images have been moved. Probably just in a different folder
of the same Photobucket account. They were mostly hi res versions of what you'll get on
littlefriends in any case. Anyway happy researching. I'd be interested to know what
you come up with.

A bit of progress tonight. Zipped up and engine installed. Still lots of
gap filling to be done but as there are no locating tabs I'll let this
firm up for a day or two before continuing.




You can see the difference in the width of the lower wing and what is required. 5 x 0.3mm sheets!
I coulda narrowed the fuselage I guess. We will see when the struts go on what
would have been better. I've a couple of these in the stash so it is a case of
trial and error.


The kit engine is nicely detailed. But hard to fit. I removed the top starboard cowl to ease the fit. This was done in the field to improve cooling. Shows the engine off better too.


Seat covering is lozenge fabric and the compass is visible. I've no idea if these details are accurate for Neckels mount, but they add a touch of interest.


Thats all for now.

Great progress everyone!
Looks like Aces 2 is shaping up to be just as popular as the first one.
Another couple of weeks will see me back at the bench and hopfully I can start blowing some paint aat my P-51!
Nige

Worst of the stripes done. It'll need another masking/spray session. It is hard to get all these even.
At least the underside had sanded out nicely. First time I've used Tippex as a poor mans Mr Surfacer. Works pretty good. Shame they got rid of the "sniff in the boys bog" variety. Modelling seems to be my only outlet for solvent abuse these days.

Looks like you've done a great job there jaypee
Well I've managed to get the camera working again and got a few shots. Have applied decals and last coat of future and just need to add some details before a light wash. Enjoy

Great work everyone
I have managed to get the preshading on my P-51B. One of the advantages of doing the Malcolm hood version is that I've been able to use the earlier style canopy to mask the cockpit. It will also act as a testbed for removing paint with Tesco cleaner when I've finished.


Next job......Alclad
Nige

Hi all!

Finally, Aces II has started!

This gives me the opportunity to build one of my favourite Aces´aircraft!

This one;



That´s Johnnie ´E´ Johnson, standing beside his mount, a Spitfire MkIXe, and do I have the right kit!



Tamiyas new and beautiful kit, but I´ll use some decals from my PCM Mk.IX kit, and build another of his mounts, a Spitfire Mk.IXe, but with full D-Day stripes!

Like this one;



See y´all in the bar!

Cheers!

Stefan E

Hi Stefan.
It must have been a helluva New Years Eve party for you, because we've been up and running almost 3 months now!
I gather by your post though that you have been looking forward to Aces II?
Looking forward to seeing this fabulous kit come together
Nige

Hi all, progress on Pattle's Gladiator is going ok. Had to do some serious surgery on the instrument panel to get the fuselage halves together, and now you can't see the thing anyway. But I know it's in there and painted, right ??

Otherwise this fits together very well so far.





Cheers, D

Yes, I have been looking forward to this one, but I had to get some older builds out of the way first!

It´s done now, and I have cleared my work bench!
Thus, now I can start building on this one, there´s lots of time left, so it shouldn´t be any problems!

Cheers!

Stefan E

Hi

Is it ok to post pics in the galleries of several different aces' planes in the gallery? I've done Capt Anderson's P51D 'Old Crow' and i've started on Johnnie Johnson's Spitfire IX and i will hopefully get a LA7 flown by Khozedub done soon.

thanks
Mike

Hi Mike.
As long as the models were built during the timeframe of the Aces 2 Campaign then yes they are valid entries and belong in the Gallery.
Unfortunately though, you only get one Campaign ribbon. There are no extra ribbons awarded for multiple entries.
Hope this helps
Nige

Well it looks like a project shuffling is in order. Having not had the chance to crack the box of my Accurate P-51B yet, and since the Mustang campaign is coming up I may have to save that project for that upcoming campaign.

...which leaves me searching for an 'Aces' subject.

Having just unpacked a huge load of 109 kits and discovering a Luftwaffe aces decal sheet, my mind has drifted towards Luftwaffe subject matter again. I only get credit for one build per campaign, therefore, it looks like I'll see if I can match one of the top Luftwaffe aces to the correct 109 kit in the stash.

Guess its time to get cracking.

Cheers,
Fred