1:48 P-51 Mustang III

The Mustangs of No. 315 Squadron

In the Royal Air Force the designation Mustang III belonged to the machines the Americans listed as the version with the Merlin engine and the classic framed canopy. The British also often fitted them with a molded bulged canopy, which at last gave the pilot a view to the sides and to the rear. No. 315 Squadron, made up of Polish pilots, re-equipped with such aircraft in 1944 and took part in escort flights, attacks on ground targets and the pursuit of flying bombs over southern England.

Four machines on the sheet

The sheet offers four aircraft of the same unit, told apart by their serial number and the individual letter of the machine. Two of them carry invasion stripes, that is the black and white bands with which Allied aircraft were marked from June 1944 so that their own anti-aircraft defenses would not mistake them. The other two are without them, so the builder can choose the appearance from before the landings as well as after them. A combination of four markings on one sheet is a rewarding one for a squadron of this kind, because the machines differed only in small details and side by side in a display case they make a coherent group.

Notes on the build

On the real aircraft the invasion stripes were painted in haste with a brush and their edges were usually irregular. If you spray them, it pays not to make the boundary completely sharp. The decals then go onto a finished paint job covered with gloss. In 1:48 the markings are smaller than in the large scales, which makes fine-pointed tweezers all the more important. The set holds neither the model nor the paints.