For markings I went with a kit option, Bud Mahurin's D-5 'Spirit of Atlantic City NJ'. It's a nice balance of the basic 8th AF scheme of late 43/early 44 with some customisation and a cool pilot association.
Unfortunately and to my eternal shame, I blundered a bit with the cockpit. Most (I previously thought all) P-47s had a green cockpit interior, and I basically built the cockpit then did my research (read: forum diving). Apparently until circa D-5, which had some of both, the cockpit interior walls etc were painted in zinc chromate yellow (the change was due to eye strain from this harsh shade). Mahurin's was yellow, as you can see below his hand here.
Like I said, eternal shame.
Some happier points of accuracy:
- Added some gunsight support bars (filed down from spare 1:72 RP-3 shafts), since the photos show these.
- The kit has no decals for this, but the wheel hubs actually had a blue and white star design on them, which is faintly visible in the 3/4 view colour photo of the aircraft. I did a guide mask (trying to use a protractor to draw a 6mm tall pentagon is quite interesting) and cleaned up freehand, and they came out as well as I could hope.
- Spent ages trying to work out what was going on with the cowl flaps, which are one of the main ways for identifying P-47 variants.
In theory the D-5 should have the mid type, but I spent some time looking carefully at the photo (specifically how the shadow line ends so high up - I thought it might be a C cowling for a while, but it's not quite right and has the stencilling which would go on a lower flap. The lack of lower shadow could be explained by the shorter lower flaps not casting so much of one). I decided Mahurin's could well have been fitted with later short flaps (these were more aerodynamic) at some point. The upshot of all this was doing absolutely nothing and building the kit unmodified, but it's the thought that counts.
Painting wise, I did a priming coat in light brown then masked the white and painted Vallejo OD and NG. White is always a trial with brush, and the results aren't perfect up close, particularly with some wobbly masking at play (poor camera quality tends to flatter my models with things like this).
Mahurin's plane looks well looked after, given he flew most of his career in this specific aircraft and the photo is some months into this. Very little chipping is visible, though you can see some at the wing roots etc. I tried to keep my silver brush restrained for this bit. The main areas which got attention were the rivets around the roots, canopy edges, undercarriage doors, and a few spots like the gun panels.
The gloss was followed by decals (please make them thinner Tamiya!), oil wash, pigment brush for exhaust and gun fumes, and finally a thin matt layer. This got quite a nice satin effect.
I'm pretty sure Mahurin's aircraft was waxed. The olive drab in the photos has a notably darkened, glossy look, seems to pick up camera flash and the blue of the sky, and there's some odd scuffing at the wing roots. In the end my shade wasn't quite right (might partly be a light thing) and I couldn't think of a good way to get the scuffing (I guess a light pigment brushed on sparingly might work), but the satin didn't do too bad a job of giving the impression.
The drop-tank was of some confusion to me since I don't know the equipment that well. I think the photo shows a 200 gallon cylindrical belly tank painted neutral grey. The kit has 108 paper tanks for wing mounts, which were doped silver. I decided to sand the ribbing down and paint it grey to at least kind of look the part.
Oh fuck moment round-up:
Clipping the tailwheel leg in half instead of taking it off the sprue (real pain to fix)
Breaking all the little brackets off of the drop tank mount
Repeatedly losing and finding most of the small bits (standard practice)
Results:
With a 5th AF (Pacific) Bolt
With Gentile's Mustang
Not a perfect build by any means, but it came out nice enough and I'm happy to have it in my collection. Still to go on the 8th FC must-have checklist: P-38 and a shiny Mustang.
