Assembling the Spitfire Israel

I finally got a Starfix Spitfire, only it's 1/48, a scale I don't usually build, I bought it for a price, which I assumed was a 1/72 model, and since it came in a box the same size as the P-51 and the A-4 of that Jewish brand, I assumed it would also be on that scale, they cost the same, but no, it's bigger.

I like to assemble planes of one nationality, with models of the same nationality, so this model was meant to be painted as an IDF/AF Spitfire Mk IX, during the War of Independence; the model is level 2, very simple, so much so that the wings come in one piece, it is not a pirated copy of the Airfix one, but something similar to an upscale of the old model in 1/72 of the Mk IX of that brand, the Plane represents a Mk VIII, but it's easy to fix, doesn't have a decent interior, and the decals are for a generic RAF plane

The main parts

Already painted with the basic colors and the interior of the cabin built with scratch

The model is almost complete, it lacks paint in some details.

Temporary Decoration Fiat G.50 Freccia, Albania

 There are models that do not deserve to be represented, either because we do not have exact information about them or because their very existence is highly debatable, furthermore, there are times when we just want to have an idea of ​​what the models to be made would be like, so it is necessary to apply sometimes temporary decoration to a model, I had already talked about it before, with a Colombian J2F Duck, of which there are no photos, but I was curious how it would look, but now I am going to deal with the subject in more depth.

G.50 Freccia Albania

After the fall of Italy in World War II, much of its equipment was abandoned everywhere, in the postwar period, several countries repaired it and returned to service, so we have information on Yugoslav or Croatian aircraft, but we have no information of Albania, where the Regia Aeroanutica had large quantities of aircraft, so it is possible that some of them were repaired and used by the new Albanian Air Force, but unfortunately, there is not a single photo on the Internet of an Albanian aircraft between 1946 to 1949.

So to assemble one of them, it is impossible to have correct data, we can only speculate, so I have thought to use one of my last G.50 to assemble an Albanian plane, but before doing so, I have decided to temporarily decorate one, to see how It would be seen and if it is worth doing.

temporary badges

In a store ticket, I paint the black circles, to which I add the guides to make the red stars, as well as the decoration of the rudder, which is a rectangle with the Albanian colors; I cut them out and glue them on with a glue stick.

The result, even without cutting the rudder badge, which has given me a good idea to repair broken rudders.

And the final result, an Albanian Freccia, which really looks weird, and since I don't like it that much, maybe it would be better to paint one with the darker scheme used at the end of the war, or repaint it completely in Russian colors, like the Yugoslav appliances.

B-29 Enola Gay

 One of the most important planes in history, it is also one of the most controversial, particularly in recent years, of the politically correct, in which the launch of the Atomic Bomb is seen, as something bad, ugly, there have been protests against This, the most famous, some liberals threw a bucket of blood on the plane, which is curious, if the bomb had not been dropped, and the US troops had had to invade Japan, it was very likely that the grandparents of these activists, possibly would have dead, so in a way, they are protesting against their own existence.

The Enola Gay was not a normal B-29, it had been specially modified, removing the gun turrets, replacing most of the observation bubbles, with simple portholes, with a special bomb bay and with a dome next to the bay, which I have nowhere found what it was for.

The model had not been produced, until this year, when it was manufactured by Academy in 1/144, so I used one from Lodela, which was incomplete, it is the old mold from the seventies, so it is a magnificent model, which For some reason, it was never made again.

The Enola Gay had two decorations, the first, which is the one with which the bomb was dropped, has a huge R in the tail circle, which was later changed by an arrow, decoration with which it remained for many years, first in service. with the North American Nuclear Bombardment Wing and later in the Smithsonian Museum

It is an airplane surrounded by controversy, but in this era of victimhood, even one of its presentations was very controversial, since it focused on the effects of the bomb, rather than on the device itself, something that has been done more and more. popular, to observe the victims of the bomb, rather than the factors that led to its launch, sad stories of children burned by the bomb, manipulating Vulnerability (as if the Japanese Empire had been a poor vulnerable victim of the malevolent allies) to do cheap activism.

Or maybe simple ignorance, focusing on a single event, for ignoring the others, in fact more people died in the Bombing of Tokyo, on March 9, 1945, which left between 80,000 and 130,000 dead, against the 70,000 of Hiroshima, or the destruction of Manila by the Japanese, with 100,000 dead or the Nanking massacre, with 300,000 dead, perpetrated by the Japanese, the war is something terrible, it must be avoided, but we cannot judge it only with a simple moral, of victims and victimizers; In my opinion, the Japanese deserve such punishment, only for the crimes they committed against Australian nurses on Banka Island, let alone the others they did during the war.

The model is the old Revell mold, the paint El Viejo Marino, using brush, this model had been planned to be finished 75 years after the event, but the death of my mother made me postpone it for a whole year.

Revell's Freedom Fighters

 This box contains the three 1/72 fighter models, the rarest of Revell, they are the last molds of that series to have been manufactured, in the seventies, in a very short production, I think it was only once, the Cr. 42 I have only seen it in one edition of the seventies and in this package, the PZL 11 I think was produced more, even in Mexico, the only one that I am sure was produced here is the I-16, because I saw it at the Lodela offices, when they were in Berlin 34.

These molds must have had a problem, they were the last to be made, and had a very short life, in fact the old molds from the 50s and 60s were still used until the nineties, but these were not, maybe it was a technological step. Wrong, the models were much better made, the plastic was finer and they were very well made, perhaps that was achieved with less efficient molding metals, the explanation can only be hypothesis, these models have never been produced again, like this They are very expensive, these are in their original packaging, and I do not intend to open them until I have an event worth celebrating, or perhaps, like the Ar-234, I assemble them to remove the bad taste of these two terrible years.

P-51H Mustang, NACA

In my collection of P-51 I was missing a very special one, the post-war lightened version, the P-51H, a model that is not available, there are several out there, vacuformed, but they are rare and expensive, but I realized that the old Necomisa model, which is a very bad representation of a P-51D, perhaps the worst of all, with a poorly proportioned fuselage and very short wings, is so bad that it could perhaps very well represent a P-51H.

In my collection I already had one of these, which I had painted to represent a Uruguayan plane:

After reviewing some plans and comparing dimensions I realized that it would be very easy to modify it, I even suspect that the Mustang, on which Paul Lindberg based to make his model, must have been an ANG's P-51H, not a P -51D of the war, the model is too close to the dimensions of the H.

This model has a long history, it was one of the first of Lindberg, back in the sixties, with the primitive technology of that time, it was produced for many years, until Lindberg created the new and magnificent mold of the P-51B, selling the old to Necomisa, which continued to produce it in Mexico for many more years, sometime in the eighties or nineties, they invented a new brand, called Pegaso, which was the last to produce it, with horrible friction stickers and accompanied by a paper diorama.

To add interest to the matter, in my investigation of the P-51H, I found a reference to its evaluation by the NACA, (the predecessor of NASA), and some very good photos, so I ended up painting it in that decoration, An experimental aircraft, which served for many years, in what would later become the North American space agency and what has given me a new idea, to start a collection of NASA models.

The paint is El Viejo Marino, all the decoration by brush.

F-84, Thunderstreak, Revell

 Among my old models, I found my old Revell Lodela F-84, the FS-366; I must have assembled it in the seventies, it is one of the oldest models in my collection, and you can tell that time has passed by, it had used decals and they were already peeling, the Pactra paint with which I had originally painted it It is already very worn and opaque, in itself it was not very bright and many years of having it exposed I finished with what little it had, the model required a tune-up.

And since I am using the Art of Painting to recover from my grief, stress and exhaustion, it was a great idea to repaint this old model, and taking advantage of the fact that its cabin was loose, I gave it a comprehensive review, fresh acrylic paint, natural aluminum from Last generation, repaint the badges, this is one of the S series models, which had their codes and badges highlighted, so you just have to follow the guides.

I liked the result, the interior of the cabin is already much more realistic, the metallic shine is very adequate, although it still does not convince me, I think that in metallic, oil paints are still much superior to acrylic paints, although Unfortunately, no one makes them in Mexico anymore and they cannot be imported legally; The mirror-like feeling that the metal of those times had and that only one painting represented well is missing, the old oil based Lodela paint.

AT-6G, Luftwaffe

The revival of the Luftwaffe occurred in a modest ceremony, on September 24, 1956, when it was born, the new air weapon did so after many years of not having a single aircraft, there were pilots, some very experienced, but one of the conditions of the surrender of the last war, was the total military demobilization, the design, manufacture or possession of any type of airplane by the German government would not be allowed, so the military personnel had to dedicate themselves to other activities.

The growing threat of the Soviet Union led to a rethinking of the situation, the new enemies made the Germans see as the new friends, in a series of meetings, it was decided to recreate the German armed forces, under a new formation and without inheriting any of the traditions of old Nazi or imperial Germany, that day a T-6G (AA-601), a T-33 (AB + 101) and a Piper L-18 (AS-501) were delivered, to train the pilots Germans in the technologies emerged in the last 10 years.

This model represents the first Harvard Mk IV of the Bundesluftwaffe, painted in trainer yellow, no real photos of the device have survived, but it is the equivalent of the North American T-6G, with nose cone, new train, new engine, new instruments and different antenna arrangement.

Lodela model, El Viejo Marino paint, national insignia decals, from a Lodela Alpha Jet, codes and national flag with brush, model assembled in Cuautla city, during a rest trip.