Kit: No. 090
Scale: 1/72
Manufacturer: Italeri, distributed by Testor Corp., 620 Buckbee St., Rockford, IL 61104, phone 815-962-6654
Price: $8
Comments: Injection molded, 60 parts, decals.
The Mustang was, perhaps, the most famous and recognizable aircraft of World War II. As American fighters go, it was not the most numerous (P-47 Thunderbolt), nor did it have the best kill ratio (F6F Hellcat). And curiously it was designed and produced for service in Britain's Royal Air Force - the first production version was the RAF's Mustang I.
The early Mustangs (Mustang I and Ia, P-51, P-51A, and A-36 Apache) were powered by Allison engines similar to those mounted in P-38s, P-39s, and P-40s. It wasn't until the P-51 airframe was married to the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine that the Mustang achieved top performance.
Italeri's P-51/Mustang I is the first mainstream injection-molded kit of an Allison-powered Mustang in this scale since the ancient (and rare) Frog P-51A. Parts are molded in gray styrene and feature recessed panel lines. Separate leading-edge inserts allow modeling the cannon-armed P-51 or the machine-gun-equipped Mustang I. Alternate cockpit interior parts, radiator-intake-scoop lips, antennas, and main wheels are also included. Decals feature markings for one P-51 and one Mustang I.
Assembly is complicated by the necessary installation of alternate parts. To model the Allison Mustangs, you have to cut away the back deck of the cockpit tub and replace it with a different deck. On my sample, this deck did not span the space between left and right fuselage halves, so you may want to install it on a shelf of sheet styrene. No detail is molded to the sidewalls of the cockpit, so there is no throttle quadrant or oxygen equipment. The rest of the fuselage went together fine.
Normally I don't correct review models, but I wanted to see how much time would be needed to make an acceptably accurate model from this kit. I carved and filed the leading-edge crank, but this opened gaps in the hollow wing. I filled these with gap-filling super glue, applied accelerator, and sanded the revamped fillets smooth.
More wing corrections were in order. The wing-tip navigation lights were a feature of the P-51Ds, but earlier Mustangs had upper and lower lights inboard of the tips. I shaved the tip lights off and made new ones from drops of gap-filling super glue. The small fairings in front of the ailerons were featured on late Mustangs, so I sliced them off, too.
A single landing light is provided. It's one of those pop-down lights housed in the wheel well, but the P-51 and Mustang I had single-bulb landing lights in the leading edges of the wing. I didn't try to add these to my kit. Italeri includes bomb racks with a choice of drop tanks or bombs, but underwing stores didn't come along until the A-36 Apache dive bomber; I left them off.
Shell-ejector ports in the bottom of the wing are flashed over. You simply open the ones you need for the gun configuration you choose. The alternate wing leading-edge machine-gun insert has open holes for the .30-cal. guns and flashed-over holes for the Mustang I's .50-cal. guns, but the instructions don't point this out. The subtle streamlined fairings around the gun muzzles are missing. A pair of .50-cal. guns for the Mustang I nose is provided and shown in the instructions, but there are no holes or fairings for them in the nose. Fixing these inaccuracies took about two hours.
With these corrections, the model looks like an Allison Mustang. Painting was simple: olive drab over neutral gray in the case of my P-51. The decals went on fine with a little setting solution and a slice over control-surface hinge lines.
One more hurdle: Except for division lines between the windshield, center, and rear-view sections, there was no framing detail on the one-piece canopy. I painted clear decal film olive drab over interior green, sliced it into thin strips, and applied them for the framing. Fortunately, even the frames around the multi-panel windscreen are straight. I spent an hour framing the canopy.
I replaced the blade antenna mast with a styrene rod and strung fine monofliment for the antenna. Total time on my P-51 was 14 hours. The model is simple enough to be built straight from the box, but Mustang enthusiasts will want to fix the faults and perhaps add more detail in the cockpit. The finished model's overall dimensions match the drawings and data in my main reference, Bert Kinzey's P-51 Mustang in Detail & Scale.
- Paul Boyer