Hasegawa 1/72 P-51B/C Mustang "Air Racer"
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Overview
In the post-war era, the North American P-51 found a new reign of life in the hands of civilians taking part in the growing air racing community. One individual within that community was Jackie Cochran, who picked up several Mustangs after the war. The first was a P-51B-15-NA, 43-24760, that was later registered NX28388 and painted green. This plane crashed in September 1948. The second was a P-51C-5-NT, 43-103757, which was highly modified into the 'Beguine'. Extremely fast, this plane won the 1949 Sohio race but crashed during the Thompson Trophy Race at Cleveland.
The final Mustang owned by Jackie Cochran was a P-51C, serial number 2925. The odd serial number is because this plane was actually built from components of several aircraft and was not a factory-built Mustang. Painted blue and given the name "Thunderbird", this plane had an interesting history. In 1949, while owned by Jimmy Stewart and Joe De Bona, it won the Bendix Trophy Race. In December of that year, Jimmy Stewart sold the plane to Jackie Cochran for a dollar, and Cochran went on to set several records in this plane before selling it back to Stewart for, yes, one dollar.
The Kits
The kits included in this boxing are identical to the last dual combo P-51B release from Hasegawa, which we did both an initial review and a dual build article. I'll recommend reading both of those articles for those interested in how these kits go together, and I'll just touch on a couple of the differences and the decals in this review.
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First up, there is one noticeable addition to this box: some resin goodies. The resin parts provide the fin fillet that is absent in the stock P-51B kit, as well as a small antenna cover found on the underside of the fuselage of 'Thunderbird'. These are typical of Hasegawa resin, cast in a gray resin and featuring a slight bit of flash. Cleanup will be simple, though, and the fit should be excellent.
For the decals, you get a couple of colorful schemes in this box, that's for sure. Starting with #13, this is Jackie Cochran's first Mustang, the Lucky Strike Green P-51. There's not much to this scheme, you get orange registration markings and large white 13s for the fuselage and wings. For the nose, there's the phrase "Air Power Is Peace Power", and the decal sheet thoughtfully included the other slogan worn by this plane, "WANTED A Strong Coequal Air Force". Unfortunately they misspelled coequal (spelling it 'coequel'), so if you want to use that slogan you'll have to recreate it yourself.
The second option is 'Thunderbird', and this scheme gets a bit more in the way of decals. There's the registration markings for the tail and wings, and the large #90 for the fuselage sides and lower wing. The rudder gets some yellow checkers, while the nose has the Thunderbird name. A thin cheatline wraps around the rear window and runs forward to end in a Thunderbird logo, and under the cockpit on the fuselage side are a pair of red horses and a nameplate containing the names of the pilot Joe De Bona, owner Jimmy Stewart, and others. When Jackie Cochran set her first records, that name list was on the side of the plane.
The decals overall are nicely printed, and include a handful of prop logos and other small markings. The only possible question will be with the density, as the color of these aircraft are dark enough to potentially cause color shift in the white and yellow decals. The yellow of #90 will be particularly challenging, as it looks like some of it is backed in white and some of the smaller parts are not.
Conclusion
While the Hasegawa P-51B kit may not be the most accurate one out there, it builds up easily enough and when finished will look like a Mustang. Add in some colorful markings and you can have a fun couple of weeks building these out of the box. My thanks to Hasegawa USA for the review sample.