INTRODUCTION Some of you that know me may be wondering if I have lost my mind. Well not really.............YET. Our club's April meeting happen to fall on April 1st, APRIL FOOLS. So we decided we needed to have a WHAT-IF / OUTTA-CHARACTER Theme for the month. So I decided to take a different approach to it and said I will do something that is OUTTA CHARACTER for myself...a 1/72 kit. Now I know why I don't do these 1/7-tiny kits...to fiddly.

I had picked this kit up at the recent 1/2 off sale at Hobby Lobby and thought it would make a great build for the theme at our club's April meeting. Granted it was the F-51D boxing, it did come with the additional Hamilton Standard prop and spinner.

HISTORY This aircraft depicts the last aircraft flown by Major George E Preddy who flew with the Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney, the 352nd FG. George Preddy started out in the 352nd FG flying with the 487th FS. The same squadron as aircraft like Moonbeam McSwine. Later in the war George Preddy became CO of the 328th FS. Preddy was a decorated pilot with a Distingquished Service Cross, Silver Star w/ Oak Leaf and a Puple Heart which was awarded to him posthumously. The 352nd was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, a true rarety. Preddy was the leading Mustang Ace with 27 aerial victories, 32 victories overall. Preddy also had the distinction of becoming only 1 or 4 Aces in a day with the 352nd FG.

Unfortunately Major George Preddy was shot down and killed on December 25th 1944 while chasing a FW 190 down to the deck. Two 50-cals from an American quad-fifty had claimed the life of Major George E. Preddy, top Mustang Ace of WWII.

CONSTRUCTION
I can't really say more about the Tamiya's line of P-51's than what's already been said. The kit is a shake-n-bake kit. There are only a couple of areas that I had problems with. Since I had less than one month to build this thing......I didn't waste any time in building this one up. I spent far less time on those time consuming things of REALLY cleaning up the seams, etc. Got them best I could and just went with it.

PAINT / DECALS
I kept with my favorite, although slow to dry, method for NMF. A 3 part mix of Floquil's Diosol, Platinum Mist and Glaze. Since the blue on Preddy's last aircraft was obtained late in the war, I used Floquil's Imperial German Infantry Blue from the Military Color line. There are some discrepancies between the photos I have, the decal sheet from Eagle Strike and the decal sheet from Mike Grant, so I kinda went with the photos I had.

WRAP-UP
As of right now, it doesn't have the mast on the spine as the carpet monster ate it.