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Next up are some photos from Larry Grapentine from Peoria, Arizona. 

I have been corresponding with Larry for a while now regarding the colours of RNZAF P-40's, and he has recently completed NZ3220, the last of the 'Gloria Lyons' P-40's.
 
 

Larry adds: The kit is the 1/48 AMT P-40N with a mix of Aeromaster, Superscale, and ALPS decals. Paint is Modelmaster enamel stock colors. Wheels are True Details resin. Exhaust stacks are from a Eduard P-400 kit. Also used wire, small tubing, aluminum foil, sheet brass, and lots of little pieces of styrene to get this kit to fit together. The markings are a tad off, but none of my clubmates will know unless you tell them.    Larry is a member of IPMS Phoenix. www.ipms-phx.org
 
 

Next up are a few shots of my build of NZ5440 'Lil Audrey' built from the Tamiya 1:48 F4U-1D kit.  I used parts from the Aires resin detail set for the cockpit, the front section from an Engines and Things R-2800-8W (Thanks to Dave Wadman), and the odd part from the Eduard etch set.

Decals are a combination of Aeromaster SP48-10, RooDecals, and homemade with an ALPS MD1000 printer.

Paint used was Aeromaster enamel, Humbrol enamel, Floquil, Testors MM and Xtracolour enamel.  Weathered with a lightened mixture of the base coats, drybrushing, and ground pastels.
 
 

The following photos and build notes are from Anthony Galbraith from Christchurch, New Zealand.  The kit is the Accurate Miniatures TBF-IC, and is finished as a post war RNZAF target tug, NZ2504.  Anthony is a member of IPMS Canterbury.

The whole interior was modified with extra shelving (for drogue stowage), switches and cabling (for the winch) were scratchbuilt, flare tubes were removed, the turret was blanked off  with card, the radio equipment was removed from the rear cockpit area and a seat was added. 

A new clear window behind the cockpit was added as I couldn't get the kit one to fit properly. A resin seat from an old Verlinden Corsair set was modified to look like an Avenger one. 

I used 10thou card to make gun access panels, drilled fastener holes, and then rubbed it down to scale thickness. The trough in the nose where the gun fires thru was simply filed out, and cooling gills were made with 10 thou card with fine rod actuators. 

The starboard one had a V put into it by shaping a small piece of card glued underneath. Flaps & flap bays were scratchbuilt. 

The main u/c was plumbed and a new brake line was rerouted forward of the main legs to the hub. The wheels were filed to a more square cross section and radial tread scribed and then I flattened them on my wife's iron! Rib structure was added inside the wheel bays.
 
 

I had a yellow paint chip from this a/c that a friend, Dave Wilson, gave me years ago, and had a local automotive paint supply shop match the  colour.  This was then lightened for scale effect as it looked too intense in colour in 48th. This is a lacquer, and I used Tamiya's AS-12 for the silver,  decanted into a jar and then run thru the airbrush. The black/greys were various mixes of grey & white lacquer, 

I used Almark decals set A20 roundels because the blue closely matched the Dulux Zenith blue used by the RNZAF, sealed them with Future, and Polyscale flat was used for the clear coat ( an old guy I met said she was very tired looking, and the paint was very dull until 1959 when she was repainted). 

A computer cut mask for the serial was done for me by a local signwriters , which was sprayed on.

Mike Aldridge from Hamilton, New Zealand, has sent in the next two photos.

It's the Mauve kit, with Aeromaster decals. Paints used were Model Master acrylics, and Humbrol.
It's had brake lines and the fuel line from the drop tank added, as well as the bead thingy for the gunsight on top of the cowling. All weathering is by pastel chalks.
 
 

Also I've attached a picture of the Hasegawa 1/48 P-51.  I've added resin flaps, and Ventura decals.
 
 

Next up is the TRUMPETER 1:32 F4U-ID from Lukasz Kedzierski – Born in Poland, but I have been living in Melbourne for the last 11 years. I am a molecular biologist with PhD working on tropical diseases. However history, especially WW2 aviation history, was always one of my interests. I have been making models for more than 17 years now and I build mostly 1:72 modern aircraft and 1:48 WW1 (that’s a recent thing) and WW2 planes. I have particular interest in Polish AF, Russian AF and esoteric subjects used by smaller air forces. The Corsair is one of my “pet” aircraft, but I can honestly say that 1:32 scale is definitely not my scale. Way too big!

My Kiwi Corsair was built as a result of a recent trip to New Zealand and an inspiration I got from attending the Warbirds over Wanaka 2004 airshow. Since I already have several kits in 1:48 scale I decided to go for something bigger and more unusual (at least for me). My choice was the new Trumpeter F4U-1D in 1:32 scale. Quick internet search revealed that I faced rather limited choice of RNZAF decals in this scale. The only decals sheets I could find were Ventura Decals set for F4U-1D NZ5255 Corsair and RooDecal sheet containing generic F4U-1A/D markings. Fortunately for me both of them were available at Snowy Mountain Models in Melbourne and quickly made their way to my desk.
 

The kit itself is quite impressive when it comes to number of parts and a level of detail. The first positive impression is spoiled upon closer examination, which reveals several ejector pin marks present in tricky places such as a wingfold, wheel wells, pilot’s seat etc. Some of them are hard to deal with, whereas some of the others are invisible later on. One way or another I did not like them and tried to remove most of what I could. I decided to build my Corsair OOB and the only addition was the seat harness made from aluminium foil with buckles done from photoetched parts from a spare box. 
 
 

The cockpit is pretty well detailed and looks great when assembled and painted. I decided to include the cockpit floor as well, although it was not present on F4U-1As or –1Ds. However, its inclusion makes life easier since all the cockpit components are supported by the floor. The arrestor hook was removed from the tail wheel since RNZAF Corsairs did not have them. 

The construction was pretty straightforward until I reached the wing centre section. The fit in this area is very poor – wheel wells, intakes in the wing root or the wing-fuselage joint all required some putty and sanding unlike the rest of the kit. I decided not to open the gun bays and leave the wings in extended position. The latter obviously required gluing the outer wing sections to the centre section, and surprise, surprise the fit here was very poor again. The kit was backdated to the F4U-1A standard by filling in all the openings for underwing stores and adding canopy frames, which were simply painted on. I would also like to point out that the undercarriage is very flimsy for the kit this size and the finished model is rather wobbly
 

Photographic evidence and my references indicated that the aircraft I wanted to model had very faded and matt camouflage colours, some oil staining, but nevertheless was well maintained. I started with pre-shading using Tamiya acrylic black, which was followed by Tamiya acrylic white on the undersurfaces. For the upper colours I used Humbrol 144 as Intermediate Blue and Aeromaster acrylic Dark Sea Blue. Both colours where lightened with white and their application was then followed by an extensive post-shading with lightened and darkened shades of the base colours, which were applied with Aztek 470 airbrush. 

Weathering was done using dry pastels, oil washes and paint chipping was simulated with Testors chrome silver. Finished paint job was sealed with a coat of Future in preparation for decals. 
 

I used the RNZAF roundels from the RooDecals sheet since they feature a correct blue colour and all the other markings specific for NZ5255 came from the Ventura Decals sheet. Both sets proved to be troublesome. RooDecal roundels reacted erratically to the Set and Sol solutions. Some settled nicely, while others got all wrinkled and I had to sand them smooth and repaint. On the other hand, the Ventura Decals markings had very poor colour density and an adhesive, which was hard to remove and was causing some silvering, especially around serial numbers. 
 

And here we go, my first Kiwi aircraft – big, mean and beautiful. I really enjoyed this project and I am really happy with the final result. The new Trumpeter kit is definitely up to today’s standards despite some fit problems and I only wish that there was a better choice of RNZAF decals in 1:32 scale.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the following people with their help in my research into the RNZAF Corsair: Peter Mossong, Peter Hobbins and Dan Farnham