I have the following kit, Hobby Craft P40 1/32 and there are no AVG directions on how to paint it. Does anyone have a website or something that I can go by to paint my P40.
Thanks
Recon

Hi Mike.
I dont know what you mean by AVG,but try this link.
There are about 150 different P40 schemes to choose from.
http://wp.scn.ru/en/ww2/f/375
Hope this helps.
Nige

Hi Mike, a 1/32 scale P-40 huh? You should probably just send the kit to me. :-)

The most accurate colors for the camo scheme seem to be "dark earth" and "dark green".
As far as the pattern goes, I just finished a Hasegawa P-40E modeled after the plane my Uncle flew. It's pretty accurate and I could scan the painting directions and email them to you if you'd like. Otherwise just type in "Flying Tigers" into your search engine and you'll get about a million pictures on different sites of the camo scheme.

Hope this helped
Hermon

cutting edge does some excellent decals for the AVG. Here is a review:
http://decals.kitreview.com/decals/ced32051reviewbg_1.htm

cutting edge decals are available from meteor productions:
http://www.meteorprod.com/

Herman:
I would appreciate it very much if you could email the painting instructions;
Recon

Mike, send me an IM with your email address and I'll shoot the instructions your way. It'll take me a few minutes to find them and scan them into my computer.
Hermon

I found a painting guide on the bottom of the box!!! DOH!! I really appreciate your help.
I will be looking into getting some different decals also.
Thanks again.
Mike

Hi Nigel!

AVG = American Volunteer Group
That was the official name of the "Flying Tigers". You should have known that... I´m thinking about a punishment for you! :-)

Jean-Luc

Thanks for the pics.
recon

Hi Recon,

I've started mine as AVG, too.

Basically, AVG P-40s were diverted from an RAF order. The RAF was using their green/brown/sky scheme, and had a standard camo pattern for all their fighters, be they P-40, Spitfire, Hurricane...

Find any 1941 RAF fighter and paint the P-40 in that scheme: Early RAF Day Fighter

That said, these P-40s maight have been painted with Du Pont's version of RAF standard paint, which Dana Bell has documented as ever so slightly different, though probabaly almost unnoticable.

We are fortunate that some of the AVG pilots took color photos and home movies while there. Some can be found here: P-40s with Color

AVG's R.T. Smith close-up Note the two camo colors behind rear canopy "ears"--the color was not an interior green.

AVG P-40 in flight Note that even a high-quality website can make mistakes--the picture is dated 1940!

AVG P-40 nose Note paint chips on gun fairing, difference in mouths and placement of eyes.

A word of warning. DO NOT use airshow warbirds as your reference, many are innaccurately and fancifully painted. That said, there are some seriously restored warbirds out there, but rule of thumb, if you see one at an airshowm disregard it.

At the risk of sounding like I actually know what I'm talking about..........
I've read from a couple of sources that when the AVG order was placed, Curtiss Wright didn't have enough finished engines to put into the planes. What they did was to use parts from the "spare parts" bin. They used missmatched pistons, rods, cranks etc. What this meant was that each engine had to be balanced and blueprinted when built. What happened was that these engines actually ended up having anywhere from 50 to 200 more horsepower than the standard production line Allison V-12 that went into the P-40's of the day.
Could be that this at least had a small effect on how well those P-40's did against their Japenese counterparts. Who knows?

Hermon