1:72 10th AF Mustangs

Mustangs over the Burmese jungle

In the hierarchy of the Allied effort the front between India and Burma came at the very tail of the supply priorities, and yet some of the boldest air operations of the whole war took place there. The units there had the monsoon, malaria and mountains without landmarks against them, while the nearest repair base lay hundreds of kilometers away. It was precisely here that the first machines of the Mustang family with the Allison engine arrived, and with them the attack variant with dive brakes, meant for diving attacks on bridges over mountain rivers.

The units on the sheet

• Aircraft of the 311th Fighter Group including the 529th and 530th Squadrons
• Machines of the first Air Commando group, which in March 1944 landed gliders behind the enemy line
• Later aircraft of the second Commando group from 1944 and 1945
• The reconnaissance variant with cameras in the rear of the fuselage

What to do with it on a model

The Mustang family went through a fundamental change among the machines shown. The early examples have the cockpit sunk into the spine and an air intake above the engine, while the later ones have a teardrop canopy and a different nose. So choose the subject before you reach for a kit, because they cannot be swapped for each other. On the rear of the fuselage, check the position of the stripes the Commando machines carried as a quick recognition mark. The colors of the aircraft here, moreover, suffered from the sun and the damp more than anywhere else, so a faded shade of the base looks more convincing here than a fresh coat.