Kit: No. 48-021
Scale: 1/48
Manufacturer: Modelcraft Canada Inc., P.O. Box 8110-57, 250 H St., Blaine, WA 98230, phone 604-437-1166
Price: $27.95
Comments: Injection molded, 144 parts, decals.
To call the Twin Mustang two P-51s flying in close formation would not be entirely accurate. The prototype was produced by radically lengthening lightweight P-51F fuselages, tacking on outer wings and vertical tails from P-51Hs, and creating a new wing center section and horizontal stabilizer. Designed as a long-range bomber escort, the F-82 gained a spot in aviation history in its F-82G night-fighter form. It was the first Allied aircraft to score an aerial victory in the Korean War.
Modelcraft’s kit is molded in the Czech Republic. The main parts have beautifully recessed panel lines with an occasional surface imperfection. Some of the trailing edges are wavy and thick and there is flash on the small detail parts. The sprue attachments are thick and some continue into the inner faces of the parts, requiring additional cleanup.
The cockpits are well detailed, and the kit comes with a pair of drop tanks and 15 underwing rockets.
Assembling any twin-fuselage or twin-boom kit is tricky, but this one is especially so because of poor fit. The cockpit floors, armor plate, rear shelves, and instrument panels are all too wide to fit into the fuselages. No color guides are provided for the cockpits, so I chose mostly flat black.
Test fitting each assembly is mandatory; nearly every part needed to have its mating surfaces sanded. The fuselage locator pins are too large for the corresponding holes, so I shaved them off. I used gap-filling super glue as filler so I could sand and polish it smooth for the natural-metal finish.
Leave off landing gear and propellers until after painting. It’s easier to fit the engine nacelles if you don’t cement the thin strip at the bottom of the fuselages first.
Concentrate your efforts on aligning the fuselages, center wing section, and horizontal stabilizer. I wish my stabilizer were 1/16″ wider, but I forced the fuselages together at the rear to close the gaps, then super glued this assembly. There’s no indication which side of the stabilizer is up, so I placed the curved side up.
Before adding the outer wing panels, finish filling and sanding the fuselages. Even though the wing-to-fuselage gluing surfaces have correct dihedral molded in, make a simple jig on a flat surface to hold the joints in place as the glue sets.
The canopies and windscreens are thick and produce distortion. They don’t fit well to the fuselages, either, so I shaved the bottom edges of the windscreens (especially at the fronts) to make them fit properly.
I left off the drop tanks; they don’t appear to be the right shape compared with photos, and painting the red/white/blue scallops as shown on the box top would be difficult.
After sanding and polishing the model, I painted the noses and spinners Tamiya X-4 blue, then masked and applied Testor Metalizers for the natural-metal finish. The decal sheet provides the stripes for the wing tips, tails, and stabilizer, but you’ll have to touch up with blue and Testor Guards red. The blue stripe under the nose should end at the panel line just forward of the main gear doors, not all the way back to the radiator intakes as shown in the instructions.
I found two decal sheets in my sample kit, both slightly out of register. They are thin but brittle, cover well, and snuggle down after reacting slowly to Solvaset. I left off most of the stenciling provided. The aircraft data block (decal A) should go only on the left side of the left fuselage. The instructions show decals F (which read “100 octane fuel”) on the tips of the vertical stabilizers — I don’t think so! Missing was the 27th Fighter Group insignia for the left fuselage. In its place was a duplicate 8th Air Force emblem, which is proper for the right side only.
The measurements of the finished model scale with the dimensions in Swanborough and Bowers’ United States Military Aircraft Since 1908. A good reference on the Twin Mustang is the November 1977 issue of Airpower.
I spent 25 hours on this model, and I recommend it to experienced builders due to the fit problems and the natural-metal finish.
Ross Whitaker