1:32 P-51D Mustang

An insignia, a stripe and a band are three different things

Photographs of Mustangs from the end of the war are full of color and it easily merges together. There is only one national insignia, the star with bars, and its form is prescribed. Everything else is recognition marking of a lower order: the stripes around the fuselage and wing introduced for the landings, the colored bands on the fin and the leading edge that identified the parent group, and a brightly painted propeller spinner or the whole forward fuselage as a squadron marking. Those changed month by month and the group headquarters decided on them, whereas the form of the insignia was decided by army-wide directives.

Where the limit of the set lies

The box deals with two things: the glazing of the bubble canopy from the outer and the inner face and two masks for spraying the national markings. Group stripes and bands are not in it and are sprayed following your own reference, or added from a decal sheet. That is exactly why it is useful to know what counts as the insignia and what no longer does. The scope of the box is thereby clearly bounded and the rest of the markings remains a choice according to the particular aircraft and date.

Building advice

• Mask the bubble canopy as a whole, as one-piece glazing has no frames for a film to anchor on.
• Spray the white under the star in two thin coats; applying it straight onto dark blue tends to be patchy.
• Leave the bands and stripes for later, so that they cover the sprayed insignia in the right order.
• Remove every trace of the adhesive layer before the clear coat.

The set serves for painting and contains neither a model nor paints.