Kit Review: Tamiya F-51D Korean War #61044

 It may seem odd to review a kit released nearly 13 years ago, but there’s always room for a retrospective. For many years Hasegawa’s P-51D was the standard, and it remains a very good and entirely competitive kit, but Tamiya’s builds somewhat easier and is superbly detailed. The Hasegawa cockpit is slightly better, but unless you have the canopy open you really can’t tell what’s in the pit anyway.

The 81-part kit features optional parts for the Inglewood or Dallas canopies, Hamilton-Standard or Aeroproducts propellers (blades and spinner cones), and features 6 5” HVARs and a choice of 2 500lb bombs or 2 75-US gallon droptanks for the wing racks. The kit comes with decals for three aircraft of Korean vintage, the famous FF-943 (“Was that too fast?”) of the 12th FBS, 18th FBG; the CO’s aircraft of the 18th FBG; and “Buckeye Blitz” of the 36th FBS, 8th FBW.  

 The clear parts are crystal clear and barely-distorting, while the overall fit of the model is outstanding. I needed only a little filler on the underside seam where the fuselage halves trap the cockpit/radiator assembly. The cockpit is quite adequately detailed for the scale, and while no harness is included, not even as a decal (as with Tamiya’s Corsair), there is a gunsight glass and the canopy frame brace. The propeller seats back onto a stub which engages a poly cap trapped between the hub parts, which means the prop can be mounted in the final assembly round, after all major handling is done, minimising the chances of breakage.  

 Tamiya must use very high-pressure injection moulding, as the sprue attachment points are as small as technically possible. They are also located in carefully-considered locations where the inevitable inconsistencies where the sprue is cut and filed back show as little as possible.

Alignment and fit are of a very high standard and the kit pretty much builds itself, certainly for any experienced modeller it should be a breeze. There were no problem areas to speak of. The decals were thin and opaque and reacted well to setting solutions, but were not particularly ‘sticky’: three small stencils simply disappeared during subsequent handling, underlining the desirability of clearcoats.  

 I finished the model in Humbrol enamels, mixing #11 Silver Fox 7:3 with #56 Flat Aluminium to create a weathered metal look evocative of the beating the aircraft took from the severe weather conditions in Korea. The yellow accents were sprayed in a mix of Tamiya Acrylics (XF-3 Yellow, warmed with XF-7 Red and brightened with X-22 Clear Gloss). The prop blades, anti-glare panel and rudder trim tab were sprayed XF-1 Flat Black. The cockpit and gear bay interiors were sprayed Interior Green, mixed 1:1 from Tamiya XF-3 and XF-5 Green. The overall recessed panel lines were accented with ProModeller Dark Dirt panel wash, and the natural metal finish was varied with graphite, burnished into the paint with a stiff brush, and masked (with the greatest care!) with Tamiya tape. MiG pigments were used to add dust to the gear bays and underside, plus gun carbon and exhaust staining.  

 This was a very enjoyable build, the model looks proud in the display case, and I’m sure I’ll be building many more, working through my decal stash to collect the elegant Mustang in many of her historically famous schemes.