1:48 Bell P-400 - Space Set for Arma Hobby

The instruments of the Airacobra from thin layered film

The package carries pre-printed panels with a thickness of their own on backing paper, so that once seated they look like a molded part, not like a painted drawing. Besides the front wall, the side consoles and metal harness straps for the seat from the Arma Hobby kit come into play.

The designation P-400 and its story

Under this cover number went the Airacobras originally ordered by the British. Most of them were taken over by the US Army Air Forces and sent to the south Pacific, where in 1942 they defended Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. Compared with the classic version they had a 20 mm cannon on the propeller axis instead of the heavier 37 mm one. At high altitudes the aircraft ran out of breath, and so it became above all an attacker of ground targets.

The condition in which these machines served

Conditions on the coral airfield were merciless. Dust from crushed coral got everywhere, the tropical sun drew the color out of the camouflage into a bleached shade and the rain spread mud over the landing gear and the underside of the fuselage. The engine sat behind the pilot, so the exhaust gases streaked the sides of the fuselage far to the rear. The doors of motor-car type had a worn edge and handle, a path worn down to bare metal arose at the wing root, and inside the cockpit the damp bleached the lettering.

Recommended procedure

With a damp sponge and a drop of detergent moisten only the backing paper, lift the item off with tweezers and seat it in a drop of white PVA glue; do not use a decal softener, it attacks the printed layer. Suggest the bleaching with a faint translucent pass of a lighter tone, and build the exhaust streaks up in layers with thinned paint from below upward.