SPA Modeler

Medicman71 wrote:Very nice! The cockpit looks great! I didn't know that this version of the P-38 was called the F-5E.

Yes, the F-4 and F-5 WWII USAAF photo recon aircraft were based off of the P-38. The difference being the base model. Any suffix to the F-5 nomenclature differentiate further Lightning sub variants.

Here is a list and article on all USAAF WWII F types.

https://www.defensemedianetwork.com/sto ... -fighters/

Interesting. Learn something everyday.

Medicman71 wrote:
Interesting. Learn something everyday.

- Kari

Make that times three.... Interesting indeed.

When I bought the kit, I didn't realize it was the photo recon version, so when I got home and saw "F-5E" on the box I did some digging and learned about all that.

Here's a pic of the inside of the nose with my makeshift cameras inside (they're just some leftover bits from some Warhammer 40K kits).


I put some fishing sinkers and some bb's in the ends of the nacelles to keep it from tail sitting and closed her up.

That’s coming along real nice!

Put weights into the front end of the spinners as well. I did that on my P-38 build. The nosewheel too if need be. The center of gravity on a P-38 Model is way aft, so to balance it out, you have to weight down every forward area possible. I don’t know how I’ll do that on a Droop Snoot P-38....

P-38 Lightning kits are one of the few that are notorious tail sitters. I remember having done one in my youth years. Weights in the nose is not always enough as I’ve learned the hard way myself.

Nice work!

I finally have paint on. The bottom had some kind of strange wrinkling on it, I'm not really sure what was going on there but I've fixed it the best I could. At least it's on the bottom where not too many people will be looking at it. I primed with flat black, then sprayed Testor's silver out of a rattlecan. After that dried I picked out a few panels with a couple shades of silver and aluminum. Since this plane was in the South Pacific at the end of WWII, I'm chipping a bit more paint than I usually do since those birds really took a beating from the elements.



I also got the props done as well. There's still a little bit of touching up to do here and there.