BORED WITH OLIVE DRAB? GO BRIGHT RED WITH A LIGHTNING CALLED ‘YIPPEE’!

David Jefferis reports
We recently made an SMN Crew trip to Britain’s largest air museum, near the university city of Cambridge. Imperial War Museum Duxford (just ‘Duxford’ to most of us) is a droolworthy destination for anyone with even the slightest interest in aviation. Apart from the dozens of beautifully preserved aircraft to snout around, there are hangars full of restoration projects - from Mustang to Staggerwing, there’s plenty of choice for all.

Duxford’s American Air Museum
There’s also lots to interest model fans, with two decent shops, plus various miniatures on view here and there. Among our favourites was a P-38 Lightning, on display in the three-year old American Air Museum, a high-tech building designed by the famed architects Foster & Partners. Here the P-38 could be seen in front of a real P-47 Thunderbolt - nicknamed ‘the jug’ by World War II pilots.

An aircraft named ‘Yippee’
The shiny polished-metal finish model got us thinking about alternatives to traditional camouflage for warplanes like this. And if you want something really different, the P-38 is a natch for bright vermilion, about as far away from the military look as you can get. The prototype for this paint job is ‘Yippee’, a P-38J that was the 5000th Lightning built, serial number 44-23296. It received the special finish - plus signatures of hundreds of factory workers - to mark the occasion in May 1944. After the publicity pix were taken, Yippee was drafted back into service, and a month or two later was flying combat missions (minus the red paint) with the 475th Fighter Group against Japanese forces in the Pacific Theatre.
      
Visit IWM Duxford here.

See P-38 models here.

The pictures show, top to bottom:
1, 2  Polished-metal P-38 model at Duxford, P-47 behind.
3, 4  Yippee publicity pictures, taken in 1944.
5  Loading a P-38 with fresh ammo.

1:48 MITSUBISHI ZERO FINISHED MODEL FROM TAMIYA

SMN gave a glowing review of the Tamiya Fieseler Storch in July, and here’s another finished 1:48 scale model from the same company. And this one lives up to the mini-tradition started by the Storch, in being a small-but-perfectly-formed treat for those of us who are too busy to do much ‘real’ model making.

Tamiya’s Zero has markings showing that it was flown by Japan’s top ace Tetsuzo Iwamoto, who flew with the Japanese forces from 1934-1945, years that included combat over China in 1938, and at the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. His personal diaries recorded more than 200 air-to-air kills.

The Mitsubishi Zero was introduced in 1940, at which time it was streets ahead of any other carrier-based fighter. But within two years, improved tactics and new aircraft gave Allied pilots the winning hand in air combat. Aircraft such as the F-4U Corsair and P-38 Lightning outclassed the Zero in almost every way.

Looking at the model, it’s obvious that Tamiya has really done its homework with this Zero. Neither arrester hook nor direction-finder are fitted, both items being removed when the aircraft was stationed at Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, the main Japanese base used for Pacific theatre air and sea forces. Other features of the Tamiya Zero include a nicely sculpted pilot figure in the cockpit, an underbelly tank, and the neatest pair of wheel chocks we’ve come across.

Visit Tamiya here.

MIGHTY MODELS FROM THE MOC ZONE

The neat acronym MOC - My Own Creation - is used by LEGO builders to describe their efforts. And there’s a thriving MOC site that caters to the enthusiasm of the worldwide plastic brick-building community.

Now LEGO is not really a ‘scale’ activity, mainly because of the coarse nature of the basic bricks. However, viewed from a little way away, a LEGO creation can certainly look much like the real thing. And even when LEGOness is obvious, you can usually admire technical aspects of the construction.

This P-38 Lightning (top pictures above) is an example - the outline is recognizable enough, but it’s not exactly a competitor to even a tiny Corgi offering (bottom picture). But no matter: it looks good in its own way, and you have to admire the way the builder, ‘Masterchief 1’, has allowed for the droopiness of LEGO wings by building in a pair of support struts between the fuselage pod and engines.

The online MOC community was started by keen LEGO builder Sean Kenney in 2003, although it is not affiliated with LEGO in any way. Today, Sean is the MOC pages leader and offers his services on the web as a portrait artist - making them in LEGO of course!

You can visit MOC pages here, and Sean Kenney’s portrait site here.