1:72 Bell P-39s from Aleutian Islands to Panama Canal

The Airacobra where little is written about it

The Bell P-39 tends to be associated with the Soviet Union and with the Southwest Pacific. This sheet aims elsewhere: at the foggy Aleutian Islands of 1942, where fighter squadrons faced the Japanese landings on Attu and Kiska, and at the opposite end of the continent, at the defense of the Panama Canal. Between them it sets machines of home training and tactical reconnaissance units from the years 1941 to 1944.

Eleven machines, six versions

The selection takes in the early D, F and J as well as the later K, N and Q. Several aircraft are listed with the name of the pilot, and on another the serial number is recorded. Beside the combat examples the sheet also carries a trainer from 1944, a variant that the usual Airacobra sets leave out.

What made the type unusual

An engine mounted behind the pilot, a shaft running under the floor of the cockpit and a cannon firing through the axis of the propeller spinner made this aircraft an exception among American fighters. Without a turbocharger, though, it ran out of breath at high altitude, and so it ended up mostly near the ground: over the islands, over the canal and in training units.

The workmanship of the sheet

The printing holds its registration even on the small fuselage numbers. Before applying them it pays to go over the surface with a gloss clear coat, to draw off the excess water once it has settled and to even the area out with a matte clear coat. The fuselage numbers of home-based machines tend to be large and thin, so it is better to transfer them to the model one at a time and let each settle than to cut a whole group out separately with a scalpel.