Scale Aviation Modeller International — February 2018

throughout the exterior, so

anyone wanting a more accurate

P-51 will need to fill these in.

The clear parts are bagged

separately and are beautifully

crystal clear. Two types of canopy

hoods are included, but they

both have seam lines running

down the centre which will

need removing. I will explain

how to clean these up later.

There are two decal options

included with the kit, and both

will make for interesting build

subjects. There are a few optional

details, but for the most part

this P-51 is a later variant, so if

you want to build an early P-51D,

this is not the best kit to use.

CONSTRUCTION

I began building the cockpit and

found an interesting feature that I

thought was very nice of MENG: the

entire cockpit assembly seems to

be engineered to ease airbrushing.

This, of course, made my work a lot

easier; the press-fit made it easy

to pre-assemble many of the parts

for painting, then take them apart

again for more detailed painting.

As nice and detailed as the

interior is out of the box, I did

add a few extra details. I started

by adding the non-skid pads to

the floor. To create these I used

sandpaper, which I rubbed with an

eraser. This left me with a grit that

looked appropriate to the scale.

Then, using Tamiya Weathering

Set B (Soot), I painted them black

and glued them to the floor.

I also added P-51D seat belts

from HGWmodels.cz. These made

for an amazing addition to the

model, but also really tested my

nerves. The tiny belts and etched

pieces are difficult to assemble, but

with a bit of patience and several

good tweezers, I was extremely

satisfied with the end result.

When joining the two fuselage

halves the propeller assembly

should be completed. However, this

gets in the way of painting the rest

of the model, so I deviated from the

instructions by attaching the plug

into the nose, and had no troubles

adding the spinner assembly

after the painting was finished.

I now completed the wings

and attached them to the model.

The fit was perfect, and all I

needed to do was add a touch of

glue to the wing root. All of the

construction was going really

well right up until I tried to add

the landing flaps to the model.

As moulded, the landing flaps

have to be posed down, and this is

one feature of the model I really

didn’t like, and I can’t understand

why Meng did this. I really didn’t

want this on my model, so I began a

long process of cutting, trimming,

“THE ENTIRE COCKPIT ASSEMBLY

SEEMS TO BE ENGINEERED

TO EASE AIRBRUSHING”

20 • FEBRUARY 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL

018-25-FEAT-Stang-0218.indd 20 12/01/2018 11: