P-40 is my favourite US aircraft of the war. Such an interesting history in the way it developed and changed as the war went on (P-40B was unrecognisable as the P-40N). Always nice to see some of the more obscure schemes such as the French as well.
Yessss!!!!! A Warhawk!!! I’m in between a couple of 1/72 Warhawks of several guises and looking forward to what you’re gonna do with this big one to see what I can learn from it for my own projects. Enjoy the build! 😊
Hi Matt, great subject choice witht the P40 and a contrast to the A6, good that you don't just concentrate on one era of aircraft. I may have a solution to your seat worry. I had a similar issue with a shitty seat on my Hasegawa Ki84 that I overcame by copying the outline of a brass aftermarket Ki44 seat onto a foil baking tray! They are sold cheaply almost everywhere (Baco Foil in the UK) but you need to go for the thicker material version that's used to cook vegetables etc. Once you have traced/copied your brass seat onto the foil it is strong but far more pliable than brass and you could easily add strengthening ridges before finally bending to shape and super-gluing. You can also add your own "tabs" to add to its integrity. I used scissors to cut the shape and it was straightforward, a bit of trial and error on a couple of versions may be good. Spray interior green directly onto the metal and it's easy to add a bit of chipping with the aluminium base. Hope that helps.
Instrument panel couming I was thinking about making extream thin plastic card tempelt ? You said there was not enough room. I’m looking forward to you solving this problem. As to the seat problem, your second option looks best at this point. Caint Wait For part 2, thumbs up !
Very neat. We really need a new tool P-40E/F/N in 1/48. The venerable AMT late model P40 (1995) is out there reboxed by Italeri. I think the Hasegawa is from 2005. But the P-40 was very widely used throughout the war and a new one would be welcome. I did the Airfix P-40B (in Desert AF Tomahawk dress) and it was the best Airfix kit I've made. But the P40B is a very different bird from the later models.
I've also built the Airfix P-40B and it was such a good build. Shame it wasn't engineered to allow for different engined future variants like the P-40E.
@@ekmad I'm actually glad that Airfix did not do that! To make the P-40B airframe accommodate a bunch of later variants would have resulted in "Frankenstein-ian" engineering of the fuselage, turning it into a royal pain to build. I'd rather that they do a nice new tool P-40F.
@@GilVincent I disagree, there's a bunch of innovative ways you can get multiple variants out of a single tool. Obviously for a B airframe you'd be restricted to the A-E variants but it's absolutely do-able. Hasegawa's Bf 109s in 1/32 are a goo example where it works well.
Excellent choice. But you forgot the use in Darwin & Papua New Guinea. I have been thinking of doing this kit. Do I will be following along with interest. Thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻🙃🙃
I wrote Fire in the Sky and DeHaven was a fantastic interview and became a phone friend. A great guy. He was also very active in 5th AF veteran affairs and knew a lot of people. Ten of his 14 credited victories were in the P-40 - that would make him one of the few US double aces in the P-40. (I never heard anyone - I mean nobody - use the term Warhawk. That monicker like Sky Train - it just wasn't used. A P-40 was a "P-40." The Brits loved names and did use Tomahawk/Kittyhawk.) I think Caldwell had 20 victories in the desert.
I know you mentioned that the the one-piece fuselage halves as an advantage over the separate tail construction of the Hasegawa P-40 line, however, in the case of the Trumpeter P-40F I can't call it a plus because their mold is of a short-tailed F. A vast majority of F's and all L's had the extended tail. This severely limits the available markings in terms of accuracy.
