HISTORY
For some history on the pilot, I will refer you to the WWII Aces Stories Website.

CONSTRUCTION
This kit was built mostly box stock, with the exception of the Techmod decals. Suprisingly this kit posed no major problems in construction. The only hassle throughout the whole thing was gettting the rear windows in and keeping them in. The rear windows didn't fit worth a hill of beans. So the were glued in place and sanded down. I was even shocked to see that the wing roots didn't require any sanding or filling. I glued the bottom half of the wing on first, then glued the top portion in starting at the wing roots and working my way back out.

COCKPIT
Nothing special was done to the cockpit other than picking out the details with a brush and placing a drop of Future on each of the dials to simulate the glass.

PAINT / DECALS
The plane was painted with all Model Master Enamels. I freehanded the fuselage demarcation lines aswell as the topside camel with my Iwata Eclipse at about 4-6psi of air pressure. Prior to painting the bottom and topside colors, I sprayed the D-Day stripe areas white and then masked them off for the black. I believe I used future prior to decaling and post decaling. Weathering was done with a oils, pastels and airbrushing. Everything was sealed with Floquil Flat. I love the floquil line of paints and coatings. With their clear coats it almost acts like Future as it seems to do some self leveling and hides some blemishes.

CONCLUSION
Overall I am very happy with this kit and how it turned out. Construction on this kit was a breeze.........as nice as the Tamiya and Hasegawa kits. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for good deals on this Reboxing from Revell/Monogram. As I look at it now......the only beef with the finished kit that I have is the scrouds/exhaust seem to stick out to far. But hey it's totally built OOB with no modifications, which is what I wanted. If I did it again, I might go the route of adding aftermarket exhausts and see if there is an aftermarket set of landing gears. I find the bowed out portion around the tire on the landing gear is a little flimsy, causing the P-51 gear to bow a bit.