I am looking to add a early p-38 in 1/48 to my stash and was wondering which is the best?

I was looking at the Academy P-38f glacier girl and the new release P-38g Bouganville by Hasegawa..

any thoughts or advice would be most appreciated.

thanks

They're both excellent kits. They're pretty much equivalent in terms of detail and ease of construction. I think the only advantage the Hasegawa kit would have over the Academy would be the decals, which would become moot if you intend to use an aftermarket sheet. Either one would be an enjoyable build.

Or you could get both and do a comparative review for us Neither of them has been reviewed here yet.

Hi Mike
I have built three Academy P-38's and I think they are very good, but the decals are generally terrible particularly with the older releases. The decals are not worth risking with the Academy kits, acquire some Aftermarket decals.
All the best.
tim

Hi Mike,

I agree with Tim, the decals on the older (all older) Academy kits are terrible. But the P-38 F "Glacier Girl" kit (Art. 12208)is a re-release of the older P-38 E kit (Art. 2144), so the decals are also better. The big advantage over Hasegawa is the price. Here in Germany it is about 30-35 Euros for Hase and 15-20 Euros for Aca. And on the Aca decalsheet you'll find tons of stencils ....

Happy modelling!
Torsten

For early P-38 Hasegawa is the way to go. Academy has wrong boom radiators.

Sergey.

How wrong are they? Is the correction easy or do you need to do major surgery?

I would be curious to know as well...

I can see at least one reason why one would want to avoid the Hasegawa kit for an early P-38, or any P-38: The plan view of the wingtips is way too skinny and pointy, and this is very difficult to fix because the discrepancy is at the trailing edge.

This is quite evident from the typical table display angle, so is not a minor rivet counting issue but something anyone could easily pick out from ten feet or more...

The Hasegawa kit has a good nose tip shape in that it is skinny in plan view, yet has the correct "flat" portion on the front top that is somewhat missing from Monogram and Academy kits, but on later J/L models the Hasegawa glass looks definitely too "tall" compared to the nose.

The big problem with both the Academy and Hasegawa kits is that the canopy rear fixed piece cross-section on both is completely wrong, only the 48 year old Monogram kit having got it right: The real P-38 rear glass is lower and broader, with a sharper more "triangular" shape in its cross-section: Monogram is dead on and the other kits are WAY way out... Monogram's canopy, when using a Squadron/Falcon replacement canopy derived from it, is really the best in several other ways as well...

On top of that, the bottom side bulging of the Monogram late cowlings is much better. The poor fit is quite difficult to clean up even when addressed preventively by the carving and bending of parts, but it is still the best late P-38 in overall outlines except that it is 3 mm short in span, which is easy to fix by adding 1.5 mm to the tip of each of the wingtips, as is fixing the lack of "upturn" on said wingtips...

If the Monogram surface detail can be preserved while fixing the joints (not an easy task), the amazing surface detail on the Monogram kit makes the other two kits look dead "flat" and smooth, almost toy-like in comparison... Monogram's raised lines and rivets are not accurate by being raised, but they are correctly placed and amazingly fine: The detail is just stunning to look at, and is in addition quite correct in placement and distribution.

On an older silver plastic kit issue, painted with a camo scheme, this would allow a very accurate, and observed, "wear through" effects on the rivetting of the wing's walking areas by sanding lightly the Olive Drab paint through to the silver undercoat: Monogram's chosen depiction of an L is a downer though for OD camo schemes, as filling the wing leading edge light would damage a lot of the super-fine rivets...

On the plus side, Monogram's depiction of the later J-25/L's dive brakes is so (wrongly) discrete it could easily be ignored to make a camoed "J"...

Gaston

I'd stick with the Hasegawa kit due to it's superior tooling compared to the antiquated Monogram version.

The big problem, Gaston's gripe with very minor accuracy problems not withstanding, is the alignment of the booms when assembling them with the wings.

OK.
Here is P-38F radiators:

Hasegawa:

Academy:

P-38J radiators:


Radiators in the Academy kit looks more like the ones from late Lightning (P-38J/L), Hasegawa much more correct in this area. As to the P-38J/L I would prefer Academy over Hasegawa.

Sergey.

Not an easy correction at all then
Thanks for the cue. I was prepared to get the Academy kit.

Yes, I see the point: The Hasegawa intake sides are too paralell and should have a top bottom "peak" for late models...

The Hasegawa has many other issues as well for the late models: The early models are indeed the way to go with Hasegawa.

I still prefer by far Monogram for its surface detail, having the only accurate rear canopy cross-section and better, more bulged late style engines. More correct longer nose gear too!

The Monogram tip of nose does not have the correct downward "offset" nose point however, but the others don't as well... An minor, easy fix.

Gaston

Hmmm. I read on FSM forum that the new G version corrects the lousy boom fit issue....