H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
07-26-2002, 08:52 PM
#1
H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
Has anyone out their, externally changed the apprearance of their Hangar 9 P51D to make it more scale/different? Wondering if any one else has messed with this thing at all.... Considering adding machine guns in wings, possible TopFlite drop tanks/exhaust outlet/cockpit. Also considering using LusterKote Flat Clear on the entire model to give it a more realistic look instead of the shiny Monokoted look.....Any ideas????
Mike
Mike
07-26-2002, 11:45 PM
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H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
Osprey Publications' "Mustang Aces of the Ninth and Fifteenth Air Forces" has a color profile of "Marie".
This airplane and pilot were in the 52nd Fighter Group of the 15th Air Force based in Italy. The 15th flew missions to Germany, but was not over the beaches on D-Day and did not use the black and white invasion stripes like the ads for the H9 model show. Only the 8th and 9th Air Forces flying out of England used them.
If it is true, as I read somewhere, that the new H9 model uses a 3 1/2" spinner, that's a little smaller than scale. A 4" P51 parabolic spinner would be about right for a Mustang this size. Many modelers probably do not care about that, but I do. I am a stickler for correct size and shape Mustang noses. Unfortunately, the fiberglass cowl supplied in the kit would not match a larger spinner. From the pictures I have seen the canopy doesn't look quite right either, but a Top-Flight canopy could be substituted.
Yeah, I know most of you buying this kit are not concerned about its lack of exact scaleness but Mike asked about doc for Ohr's airplane and if he's that interested I answered him and passed along some things I happen to know. If anyone cares, fine. If you don't care, that's fine too; build your airplane, fly it and have a lot of fun with it.
I only mention this because every time I point out a scale inaccuracy in some kit somebody gets on my case about "not gonna fly it at Top Gun ". I'm not either. I just have definite tastes and standards about my Mustang noses! So I pass along what I know for anyone who may be interested. If you are happy with the airplane the way it comes out of the box, then Great! Enjoy it!
Tom
This airplane and pilot were in the 52nd Fighter Group of the 15th Air Force based in Italy. The 15th flew missions to Germany, but was not over the beaches on D-Day and did not use the black and white invasion stripes like the ads for the H9 model show. Only the 8th and 9th Air Forces flying out of England used them.
If it is true, as I read somewhere, that the new H9 model uses a 3 1/2" spinner, that's a little smaller than scale. A 4" P51 parabolic spinner would be about right for a Mustang this size. Many modelers probably do not care about that, but I do. I am a stickler for correct size and shape Mustang noses. Unfortunately, the fiberglass cowl supplied in the kit would not match a larger spinner. From the pictures I have seen the canopy doesn't look quite right either, but a Top-Flight canopy could be substituted.
Yeah, I know most of you buying this kit are not concerned about its lack of exact scaleness but Mike asked about doc for Ohr's airplane and if he's that interested I answered him and passed along some things I happen to know. If anyone cares, fine. If you don't care, that's fine too; build your airplane, fly it and have a lot of fun with it.
I only mention this because every time I point out a scale inaccuracy in some kit somebody gets on my case about "not gonna fly it at Top Gun ". I'm not either. I just have definite tastes and standards about my Mustang noses! So I pass along what I know for anyone who may be interested. If you are happy with the airplane the way it comes out of the box, then Great! Enjoy it!
Tom
07-27-2002, 07:39 PM
#4
H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
Tom,
Exactly what I am looking for, and thanks for your input, im very much alike, not gonna fly it in TOP GUN, but want it to be as right as possible. I think I might have seen that book, is it only a side view drawing? Also, anyone else change anything on their P-51's to make it more scale corrrect?
Mike
Exactly what I am looking for, and thanks for your input, im very much alike, not gonna fly it in TOP GUN, but want it to be as right as possible. I think I might have seen that book, is it only a side view drawing? Also, anyone else change anything on their P-51's to make it more scale corrrect?
Mike
07-28-2002, 01:56 AM
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H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
IF "MARIE" WAS FLOWN WITH THE MIGHTY 8TH, THE MGHTY 8TH MUSEUM IS IN SAVANNA GA. OFF I-95. I HAVE FOUND OUT, THEY ARE MORE THAN HAPPY TO HELP OUT MODELERS.
07-29-2002, 03:06 PM
#6
H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
Mike:
I couldn't bring myself to use the green and blue (ugh!) instrument panel, so I downloaded a photograph of an original P51 panel from the web. The photograph was laser printed (2 copies), The top copy had the instruments cut out, then laminated over clear plastic above the second copy. A little work with some 1/64 ply and wire insulation produces what you see below.
Dennis
I couldn't bring myself to use the green and blue (ugh!) instrument panel, so I downloaded a photograph of an original P51 panel from the web. The photograph was laser printed (2 copies), The top copy had the instruments cut out, then laminated over clear plastic above the second copy. A little work with some 1/64 ply and wire insulation produces what you see below.
Dennis
07-30-2002, 12:09 AM
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H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
Mike, it is a side view, but the wing bottom shows due to the dihedral and you can easily tell the wing had two yellow bands, one just inside the "crank" and one just inside the tip. No black and white invasion stripes!
Hooray for the 15th Air Force for putting some color on the wings of at least some of their airplanes. Most 8th AF color schemes have little more than the US Star on one side to break up that vast expanse of bare aluminum. I much prefer the reds and yellows to black and white.
There are 60 (yes, 60!) color profiles in this book and they are numbered. In the back of the book there is a little write-up, about a paragraph long, for each one. This one is not one of the more helpful ones (for a modeler) - some of the others have additional info about markings - but they are all still a good read. For example, this pilot, Freddie Ohr, was of Korean descent and was probably the only Korean Ace in the USAAF!
The info in this book is well worth the $15 IMHO. I found my copy at a local "Border's" bookstore, but the mail order aviation bookstores like Historical Aviation and Zenith and others carry it too.
Mike, you are a man after my own heart! Some folks argue with me about my bashing ARCs and ARFs, never mind kits. For many it just doesn't make sense to make great changes to an ARF. After all, its purpose is to get in the air quickly. But I'm not telling anyone else that they ought to do what I do. I do what I do because I get a certain satisfaction out of making my airplane a little more "scale" than what comes out of the box and also because it ends up having a little more of "me" in it. My airplane doesn't look the same as so many others. To me all that is worth some level of effort. You can look at it as spending extra time on an ARF, OR , you can look at it as a short cut SAVING TIME over what it would take to build a full kit to end up with something not only unique, but especially pleasing to your own eye.
Actually, I have not bashed (or even built)many ARFs. I did bash a Model Tech 60 size P51D ARC into a P51B and made a number of changes to correct the scale outlines. (A picture of it is in Frank Tiano's "Sporty Scale" column in the March 2002 R/C Report.) Some thought changing the outlines was extreme. That was really the easy part. The time consuming stuff was related to re-engineering the weak engnie mounts and assuring adequate cooling for the inverted ST90 engine, calculating a correct center of gravity because the dimension given in the instruction book was ridiculously far forward, and some other stuff I don't remember offhand. I did not actually carry out every idea that occurred to me. I did reject some because they did go beyond a reasonable level of effort for the role this airplane was to play in my stable. But fixing the scale outlines was not hard and was very satisfying to do.
Stukabarry, thanx for the tip about the 8th Museum but, as I said in my previous post, "Marie" was in the 15th Air Force.
Does the 8th Museum have a website?
Tom
Hooray for the 15th Air Force for putting some color on the wings of at least some of their airplanes. Most 8th AF color schemes have little more than the US Star on one side to break up that vast expanse of bare aluminum. I much prefer the reds and yellows to black and white.
There are 60 (yes, 60!) color profiles in this book and they are numbered. In the back of the book there is a little write-up, about a paragraph long, for each one. This one is not one of the more helpful ones (for a modeler) - some of the others have additional info about markings - but they are all still a good read. For example, this pilot, Freddie Ohr, was of Korean descent and was probably the only Korean Ace in the USAAF!
The info in this book is well worth the $15 IMHO. I found my copy at a local "Border's" bookstore, but the mail order aviation bookstores like Historical Aviation and Zenith and others carry it too.
Mike, you are a man after my own heart! Some folks argue with me about my bashing ARCs and ARFs, never mind kits. For many it just doesn't make sense to make great changes to an ARF. After all, its purpose is to get in the air quickly. But I'm not telling anyone else that they ought to do what I do. I do what I do because I get a certain satisfaction out of making my airplane a little more "scale" than what comes out of the box and also because it ends up having a little more of "me" in it. My airplane doesn't look the same as so many others. To me all that is worth some level of effort. You can look at it as spending extra time on an ARF, OR , you can look at it as a short cut SAVING TIME over what it would take to build a full kit to end up with something not only unique, but especially pleasing to your own eye.
Actually, I have not bashed (or even built)many ARFs. I did bash a Model Tech 60 size P51D ARC into a P51B and made a number of changes to correct the scale outlines. (A picture of it is in Frank Tiano's "Sporty Scale" column in the March 2002 R/C Report.) Some thought changing the outlines was extreme. That was really the easy part. The time consuming stuff was related to re-engineering the weak engnie mounts and assuring adequate cooling for the inverted ST90 engine, calculating a correct center of gravity because the dimension given in the instruction book was ridiculously far forward, and some other stuff I don't remember offhand. I did not actually carry out every idea that occurred to me. I did reject some because they did go beyond a reasonable level of effort for the role this airplane was to play in my stable. But fixing the scale outlines was not hard and was very satisfying to do.
Stukabarry, thanx for the tip about the 8th Museum but, as I said in my previous post, "Marie" was in the 15th Air Force.
Does the 8th Museum have a website?
Tom
07-30-2002, 12:41 AM
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H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
Dennis, I really like your panel. It's a beautiful job and thanx for the explanation of how to do it.
I found some things that were useful in doing some cockpit detail. In the picnic section of the grocery store there are paper plates, plates made of thin sheet plastic and some made of a thin (molded?) foam material like meat trays. It's a little like molded styrofoam, but doesn't seem to have beads and is only 1/16" or 1/20" thick or so. It's very light and I have made seat backs, armor plate, and radio trays out of it and painted it with plastic paints. The nice smooth surface does not require any primer. But one day, in the cafeteria at work, my eyebrows went up when I found plates and saucers made of this thin light stuff but BLACK in color! Boy, did THAT look like instrument panel material! I cut some color pics of instruments from ads in old copies of "Flying" and other full-size aviation mags and punched holes in the black material with various sizes of sharp brass tubing and glued the instrument pics on the backs of the holes with "Weldbond". I also used a small brush to put a little of the Weldbond on the instrument faces. It goes on white, but dries clear. That gave it the shiny look of the "glass" instrument covers.
In the stationery dept there are several kinds of 3-ring binders, some with soft vinyl-like plastic covers. The black ones look very much like the "crinkle finish" black surfaces on many items in a cockpit, such as the horizontal area under the windshield but over the vertical part of the panel.
And don't forget the old trick of making wing-walks out of black "wet-or-dry" sandpaper of whatever grit looks best for the size of model you a building.
Tom
I found some things that were useful in doing some cockpit detail. In the picnic section of the grocery store there are paper plates, plates made of thin sheet plastic and some made of a thin (molded?) foam material like meat trays. It's a little like molded styrofoam, but doesn't seem to have beads and is only 1/16" or 1/20" thick or so. It's very light and I have made seat backs, armor plate, and radio trays out of it and painted it with plastic paints. The nice smooth surface does not require any primer. But one day, in the cafeteria at work, my eyebrows went up when I found plates and saucers made of this thin light stuff but BLACK in color! Boy, did THAT look like instrument panel material! I cut some color pics of instruments from ads in old copies of "Flying" and other full-size aviation mags and punched holes in the black material with various sizes of sharp brass tubing and glued the instrument pics on the backs of the holes with "Weldbond". I also used a small brush to put a little of the Weldbond on the instrument faces. It goes on white, but dries clear. That gave it the shiny look of the "glass" instrument covers.
In the stationery dept there are several kinds of 3-ring binders, some with soft vinyl-like plastic covers. The black ones look very much like the "crinkle finish" black surfaces on many items in a cockpit, such as the horizontal area under the windshield but over the vertical part of the panel.
And don't forget the old trick of making wing-walks out of black "wet-or-dry" sandpaper of whatever grit looks best for the size of model you a building.
Tom
08-01-2002, 09:06 PM
#9
H9 P-51 Scale Modifications??
Has to have guns! Made mine out of 2 sizes of thick wall carbon fiber tube (from kite store) one inside the other. Put a little silver paint on the edges for outline and you're in business. Paint works great too on the edges of the exhaust manifolds for outline.
08-02-2002, 11:22 PM
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Added flaps?
Has anyone tried to add landing flaps to the H9 P51 wing yet?
Can it be done without major headaches?
It seems like the ailerons are far enough out on the wing to add semi-scale flaps.
Thinking about buying one of these great looking ARF's but......
it's gotta have flaps to look like a 'Stang on final approach.
Thanks, Wayne
Can it be done without major headaches?
It seems like the ailerons are far enough out on the wing to add semi-scale flaps.
Thinking about buying one of these great looking ARF's but......
it's gotta have flaps to look like a 'Stang on final approach.
Thanks, Wayne
