TEXHILL
The instrument panel was finished the old school way – rubbing a silver grey pencil over the raised details after the faces were
painted gloss black. The panel itself was painted a very dark grey to offer some contrast with the instrument faces.
‘Tex’ Hill's P-51B Mustangs ‘Tex’ was already familiar with the Mustang
when he was in the US, having flown both the A and B model in Florida. The 76th Fighter Squadron was one of the first to receive P-51s, ex-311th Fighter Bomber Group aircraft, based in India, that were passed over to the 23rd FG in China.
These Merlin-engined P-51B Mustangs were
left in their original Olive Drab 41 upper surfaces and Neutral Gray 43 under surfaces scheme, with yellow serial numbers across the fin and rudder. There has been some confusion regarding Hill's personal Mustang nicknamed ‘Bull Frog’, as one the most famous photographs of this period is a shot of a P-51B with ‘267’ painted in white on the fin. The serial 43-6769 is also often associated with this machine, although there isn’t any photographic evidence for this. The propeller spinner is often depicted as red, with a double yellow band painted across the fin and rudder. However, the serial number does not appear to match up with any aircraft assigned to the 23rd Fighter Group, and the double yellow band is generally associated with the 51st Fighter Group in 1944.
‘Tex’ Hill actually was assigned at least two
different P-51Bs. The first was ‘267’ mentioned above, with an Olive Drab propeller spinner. At some later point, this machine, (or maybe a different P-51B assigned to Hill?) had a blue spinner, the 76th Fighter Squadron's colour. This was the Mustang it is believed he took on the Formosa raid.
His final P-51B had the spinner painted red,
white, and blue, to reflect the colours of the three different squadrons that he was now in charge of as the commander of the Fighter
The cockpit finished almost out of the box with the exception of the Eduard photo etch seat belts and some miscellaneous wiring.
Group. The fin carried a white roman numeral ‘11’ and the serial ‘312405’ in yellow across the fin and rudder. The name ‘Bull Frog’ (apparently the nickname of his wife, Maize) was painted on the sides of the nose above the exhaust. Some sources indicate the name was painted only on the port side, as seen in a photo included in Carl Molesworth's book ‘The 23rd Fighter Group’, however, there is another photo from ‘Tex’ Hill of the same aircraft showing the name ‘Bull Frog’ on the starboard side also.
Modelling ‘Bull Frog’ If you want to build a P-51B in 1/48 scale, their
are several good options, including the Tamiya and Accurate Miniatures versions. I already had ICM’s offering to hand, and while the details are a bit softer and the details are lacking or just incorrect in some areas, I decided to use this kit as the basis for ‘Tex’ Hill's ‘Bull Frog’, and it will be almost straight out of the box.
As usual, the build starts with the cockpit.
ICM's cockpit, while not extremely detailed, is more than serviceable as long as you don't mind some minor inaccuracies. As the kit does not offer a choice an ‘open’ or ‘closed’ cockpit, I decided to have the cockpit closed. I've sliced open my share of clear parts, but the P-51B’s would have required me to make at least three cuts to the canopy. a bit more than I was willing to chance, so the cockpit stayed closed.
The instrument panel was finished with
Tamiya Dark Gray followed by matt black for the dials. A silver artist’s pencil was used to bring out the details. While some may object to this old school technique as real panels do not have silver bezels, artistic license is claimed here for this scale. The odd ‘splashes’ of yellow and red paint were used to pick out other details. The
The underside was nicely detailed with no major problems
except for a fairly large gap right behind the ventral exhaust flap – which was filled in with thin plastic card.
The fuselage and nose fitted and glued. There was some
noticeable warping and clamps were needed to keep the pieces together while the glue was drying.
The canopy was masked and the whole airframe was primed with Tamiya white primer.
The well detailed main undercarriage was painted with Zinc
Chromate and then given a deep oil wash of burnt sienna and black. A silver-grey pencil helped pick out more detail.
Thinned Tamiya Smoke was airbrushed as post-shading and subtle stains.
To mask for the Olive Drab top colour, silly putty was used to get a slightly softer demarcation.
FEBRUARY 2015 • VOLUME 36 • ISSUE 12 35
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