Second life for “Kitten:” Arma’s P-51B get the Tuskegee Airmen treatment

Born in Colorado in 1924, Leon “Woodie” Spears, like many boys of his era, was entranced by flying, hanging out at the fence of the Pueblo Municipal Airport to watch airplanes take off and land. His chances of flying were far poorer than his friends and fellow gawkers at the airport – Woodie was African American.

When World War II began, he tried to join the Army Air Forces, but was turned away. “My white and Hispanic friends went down to the recruiter and he said, ‘You all can join except for you,’ and he pointed at me,” Woodie said in a 2008 interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He said, ‘We have no provisions for training colored people.’ ”

“I found out through what we called the ‘colored newspapers’ that a lawsuit had been filed to open things up for us. I found a copy of Life magazine and on the front was the picture of five black guys from Tuskegee. I went back to that recruiter and showed him a copy of that magazine and to his credit he said, ‘I’ll look into it for you.’”

In 1943, he was accepted for flight training at Tuskegee Army Airfield as part of Class 44-F-SE, graduating on June 27, 1944 and traveling to Italy to join the 301^st Fighter Squadron, 332^nd Fighter Group at Ramitelli, Italy. His first P-51C was named “Donna,” and it was destroyed in a landing accident. He was sent to a sub-depot in southern Italy to pick up a replacement and selected “Kitten,” which had been the aircraft of Charles McGee. During its overhaul, the plane had been fitted with a tail fillet to improve stability, and the all-red tail had a portion stripped to accommodate the serial number 103905. In addition, the red-and-yellow nose band of the 302^nd was replaced by an all-red nose, and McGee’s “78” was swapped for “51.” “I believe I know why he called it ‘Kitten,’ because the engines sure purred like one when I fired it up,” said Woodie.

The re-furbished “Kitten” at Ramitelli. Note the block of exposed metal on the once all-red tail.

Woodie completed 50 missions, sharing in the destruction of an He 111 that was menacing a damaged B-24 (although the claim was never officially verified). On March 24, 1945, he was part of the force accompanying 15^th Air Force Bombers to Berlin, its longest-ever mission. On the way to the target at 32,000 feet, a flak burst blew off “Kitten’s” outer right wing. The damaged fighter started losing fuel and altitude, and there was no way for Woodie to nurse the plane over the Alps, so he turned east instead. In Poland, he spotted a clearing near a river and prepared for a crash landing, only to discover he was flying directly into a skirmish between the Germans to the west and the Soviets to the east – and both sides were firing at him!

He lowered the landing gear, then though differently and partially retracted it before the Mustang hit with a thud. German troops quickly arrived and captured Woodie, but “they seemed to be trying to be as nice as they could,” he said. “They knew the war was coming to and end, and so they did not want to be involved in any war crimes or any cruelty.”

Woodie was subjected to a half-hearted interrogation and held in a makeshift cell in a deserted barracks building. After three days, he awoke to a commotion outside. “I pulled a board off a window and the first thing I saw was this huge Russian tank,” he said. Soviet troops were firing into buildings at random, so Woodie began shouting and waving his arms to get their attention. One Soviet soldier heard him above the din of battle. “I had an A-2 flying jacket on with a large American flag on the back. I put my back to the window so he could see it. I heard him yell, ‘American! American!’ He rushed up and gave me a big hug!” Woodie returned to his base at Ramitelli on May 10 – just after the war’s end.

Woodie stayed in the Army Air Forces and the USAF, and flew 17 missions in Korea as the pilot of an AT-6 “Mosquito.” On his final mission, he was controlling a flight of F-80s that included one flown by his younger brother George. Woodie assigned the flight a Chinese tank as a target, then watched in horror as George’s plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and crashed in a fireball. The experience shook Woodie so badly he was taken off flight status. Later in life, he drove to as many travel destinations as possible – he was a nervous flyer. He didn’t trust other pilots.

Woodie was a dynamo when it come to speaking about the Tuskegee Airmen – during Black History Month, it was not uncommon for him to deliver 40 talks in a 28-day period, even in his late 80s. After one three-day afternoon late in February, Woodie joked that at that pace, “Black History Month is going to make black history out of me!”

The author and Woodie Spears at Industrial Light & Magic in San Francisco, 2008.

Naturally, I had to build Woodie’s plane. I had planned to start with the Academy 1:72 kit, which I’d had good luck with some years earlier when I built William Whisner’s “Princess Elizabeth.” However, the announcement of a new P-51B from Arma caused me to switch gears quickly. The Arma kit was a big step up in detail, including the first accurate wheel wells in 1:72 scale and a host of options that would allow me to do the plane I wanted with the parts already in the box, including the tail with the extended fillet.

Things started promisingly in the cockpit, where Arma provides a host of options modelers have never had before. For example, you have both the Schick-Johnson-produced original plywood seat the P-51B was manufactured with and the Warren McArthur seat commonly associated with the P-51D but which was retrofitted to many B-model Mustangs later in their operating careers. The radio outfit includes arrangements used by the RAF and the USAAF in Europe and in Southeast Asia, and the radio components are distinct and detailed.

I started with the seat. I was building “Kitten” after it had gone through an overhaul at the depot, so I chose the later-style Warren McArthur seat. This is provided with separate parts for the seat pan and the back, with photoetched side braces. I painted the seat components – as well as the seat-back armor, rollover pylon and the insides of the fuselage halves – with a green color mixed from Testors paints to mix the color used by North American. The seat parts were then dry-brushed with aluminum to suggest wear on the seat pan and seat edges. The kit provides photoetched parts for the seat belts, but I had a set of spare pre-colored Mustang seat belts from Eduard handy and I used them instead. The final result was pretty amazing, even to my jaded eyes.

The seat from the kit, outfitted with photetched seat belts from Eduard.

The seat goes on the seat-back armored bulkhead. The instructions have you plug this into two holes on the floor – which are actually the in-floor fuel gauges. Don’t do this – put the seat and bulkhead farther back, against the step at the cockpit’s rear.

Before I added the seat, I painted the cockpit floor black, then painted the trough in the floor where the control column would go interior green. Using water-based tan pencils, I added worn patches on the black floor to simulate plywood visible after some wear. I dry-brushed the detail on the floor with a dark gray color, and added the first-aid kit to the top of the roll-over pylon.

Note the wear in the black-painted floor at far right .

The rear part of the cockpit floor was painted interior green. The fuselage tank is given as a separate piece, and it was painted a slightly lightened shade of black, then added to the floor. The separate tank allows you to build Mustangs that didn’t have the tank installed – the radio sets provided make arrangements for that configuration. My plane had the SCR-522 radio system, with the C-80-C case, and the dynamotor PE-94-E connected to a 14-volt battery. (This webpage gives you more details on this system than you will ever want or need.) The parts have all the details, and Arma’s insanity extends to a host of tiny decals, even for components that will be buried so deep in the fuselage there’s no way to see them when the model is done. That said, the fasteners on the SCR-522 provided as decals are quite visible and are major detail points that you don’t have to scratch-build. The radios were added to the rack and the whole assembly was glued to the top of the fuselage tank. My only major addition to the radios was to add the wires that lead forward to the control box in the cockpit (the BC-602-B, if you want to get really specific). I also added the wire from the battery to the rear terminal of the SCR-522. These wires were made from fine lead wire painted white.

The radio set and battery, with the decals which will never be seen again. The wires on top of the radio were the only addition made to this part of the model.

The sidewalls were just as detailed. Both sidewalls are festooned with stringer detail and the control boxes, map case, and other details are molded to the sides. The oxygen regulator and hose and the hydraulic hand pump are provided as a separate piece for the starboard side, and the undercarriage retraction/trim wheel/fuel mixture assembly and a separate throttle assembly go on the left side. The detail for these items is largely provided in the form of very small decals (Arma gives two sets on the sheet – a bonus for other models!). I’m always dubious about cockpit decals, but after I gave the cockpit parts a Future-based wash, these fit perfectly and went down easily. These included the fronts of switch boxes, warning placards and even the fuel gauge faces on the floor. I used some Solvaset to ensure compliance, and an hour later they looked fantastic.

The left side of the cockpit, after painting, a wash and the use of the kit decals. The wires extending from the landing gear lever were added by the author.

And the right side! All is from the kit, except for the map case cover from Eduard.

For the instruments, I used Eduard’s color photoetched parts. I’m sure the kit decal would have looked fine – but the photoetched parts look great on their own. The kit panel was sanded flat and fit into the cockpit coaming with some encouragement – this was the first fit issue I had found. The photoetched parts went on top of it, and the kit’s rudder pedals were painted and weathered before installation. To illustrate the level of madness at play in this kit, the pedals have visible North American logos on them – which are impossible to see when the plane is assembled! With the interior complete, I sprayed it with flat coat.

The Eduard instrument panel is nice, but look at the NAA logos on the rudder pedals!

Next, I worked on the radiator assembly. This is a bit over-engineered – it’s got three plastic parts and a couple of photoetched pieces, and almost none of it will be seen. I painted the parts aluminum, except for the screen at the very front of the intake, which is black. The fit of this subassembly seemed a little indifferent, which could have consequences for the fit of the fuselage. I painted and installed the tail wheel at this time, too – I wish it could have been added later, as it was in constant danger of being broken during assembly.

The fuselage did need some futzing to close properly. On one occasion, I broke one of the side arms on the pilots’ seat off and had to carefully add it back with tweezers. There was some need for sanding at the interface of the radiator exhaust tunnel and the rest of the fuselage, and I used a small amount of shimming to close gaps before I sanded and re-scribed any lost detail. MOre frustrating, the mounting points for the instrument shroud cause it to interfere with the throttle. I shaved them off and moved the shroud back a couple of millimeters. I also spotted three sink marks on the left side of the cockpit exterior – the price you pay for the molded detail. These were also filled and sanded out.

The fuselage joined up, showing just how much of the cockpit will be visible. Also: where did those sink marks go?

I also added the panel line across the top of the nose, which is often obliterated during construction. Using drawings, I mapped the locations of the 13 sets of fasteners across the top of the nose, masked with Dymo label tape, and added the fasteners with a sharpened tack.

With the fuselage together I rescribed the panel line along the top of the nose so my 1:72 mechanics can service the engine.

Next up was the tail. The kit provides the original tail and the modified, filleted tail, which was added to combat flutter at high speeds that could tear the entire tail off. These come in the form of two complete sets of horizontal stabilizers and elevators with part of the vertical tail included. I found a sink mark on one side, and cleaned it up with CA glue and sanding. When I tried to add it to the model, it did not fit – little did I know that Arma forgot in its initial release to tell you to cut a section of each fuselage side to allow the tail to slide into position. While testing the fit, part of the fuselage spine broke off, so I plugged the hole with a piece of styrene and sanded it back to shape. I modified the kit part, sanding the fillet back so it sat properly and filling the awkward gaps with CA glue. Some careful sandpaper use eliminated the seams, but also eliminated the scribing – my next task.

The modified filleted tail – Arma left a note out of its instructions that allows it to be installed more easily.

A little pushy: Eduard’s 1:72 DH.2, part 1

The Fokker Eindecker was the first fighter type to assert itself in combat, thanks to its synchronized machine gun. The “Fokker Scourge” swept British and French observation aircraft from the air above German lines in 1914 and early 1915, making it difficult to monitor German movements and putting the allies at a disadvantage on the Western Front. 

The Eindecker itself had started out as a reconnaissance machine called the Fokker A.III. It in turn was based on the design of another aircraft – ironically, the French Morane-Saulnier H shoulder-wing monoplane. To counter it, the Royal Flying Corps needed a plane that could be flown and fought in the same way – not by an observer with a flexible mount, or by the pilot firing weapons mounted awkwardly to avoid the propeller arc. The pilot needed to aim the plane like a weapon, pull the trigger and fire directly ahead. But without the synchronizer gear, it was impossible for a tractor biplane to allow this.

The solution was to create a pusher aircraft – put the engine and the propeller behind the pilot, and the machine gun in front. Geoffrey deHavilland had already designed a plane like this – the DH.1 – as a two-seat observation plane; poor performance consigned the 100 examples to service in the Middle East. The configuration was reduced in size and turned into a single-seater, with a Lewis gun mounted in the nose on a flexible mount (the RFC still clung to the idea of a pilot-aimed weapon) that was nearly always fixed to fire straight ahead. This was the DH.2.

The prototype DH.2 went into operational trials in June, 1915, but its pilot was killed in combat in August and the aircraft fell into German hands nearly intact. Production continued, just the same, and in February 1916 24 Squadron RFC deployed entirely equipped with DH.2s. On April 2, the squadron downed its first Eindecker – the DH.2 was more than a match for the Fokker – and by the summer the “Fokker Scourge” was over. During the Battle of the Somme from July to November, 24 Squadron alone downed 44 enemy planes. 

The DH.2 had a high accident rate at first (RFC training was terrible for the first few years of the war) and pilots dubbed it “the Spinning Incinerator.” After a little experience, it was found to be easy to fly and maneuverable compared to its opponents. Its one failing was the Lewis gun – the drum magazines held 47 rounds, and when expended had to be changed by the pilot. Unofficial experiments with different drum styles and twin-gun mounts never really solved this problem.

By the first months of 1917, the Germans introduced the Halberstadt D. II and the Albatros D.I, and it was the DH.2’s turn to be outclassed. The aircraft quickly moved into secondary theatres like Macedonia and Palestine, and was employed in training roles. When the British obtained synchronizing gear, the need for a pusher fighter vanished, and 24 and 32 Squadrons converted to the more conventional DH.5 in June 1917. 

For more than a half a year, the DH.2 was the dominant force in air combat over the Western Front. This took place even as the British struggled to understand fighter combat; British aces wrote the book on tactics as they went. The Germans published the “Dicta Boelcke” in June 2016; at the same time, innovative British pilots were developing their own theories. 

One of those innovators was Irishman Sidney E. Cowan. Born in Downpatrick, Ireland in 1897 as the son of the chief engineering inspector of the Local Government Board for Ireland, he and his two brothers received educations from the prestigious Marlborough College and Trinity College in Dublin. When war broke out, he was an early entry to the air service. On his 18^th birthday in August 1915, Cowan received Aviators Certificate 1639, soloing in a Maurice Farman biplane at the Military School at Brooklands and was commissioned as a probationary second lieutenant. In October he became a flying officer and his rank was confirmed in November.

By this time, 24 Squadron had formed, with Cowan one of the first 12 fliers in the unit. When the squadron moved to France, several fatal accidents shook the confidence of the fliers, but Cowan proved through his flying that the machine could be flown safely. “He was the first pilot to really ‘stunt’ this machine, and gradually the squadron gained complete assurance,” said one contemporary account. 

On April 24 and 25, Cowan mixed it up with German fighters, with no results. Later in the day on April 25, while escorting a BE.2c on a spotting mission, he was attacked by two Eindeckers from above, but quickly turned the tables on his attackers, spiraling up to his altitude and opening fire on one of them. He soon was within 100 feet of the enemy’s tail and fired off the remainder of his ammunition drum, then switched drums as he got even closer. The short range may have saved the Eindecker, because the DH.2 was bounced around by the Eindecker’s prop wash, throwing off Cowan’s aim. The Eindecker dived for the deck as Cowan changed drums again; then, deciding to focus on the mission, he caught up with the BE.2c to complete the escort. 

On May 4, Cowan caught an enemy observation plane and forced it down over German lines, then strafed the pilot and observer as they ran for cover. At that moment, the Gnome Monosuapape engine on his DH.2 stopped – the thumb switch on the stick had jammed! Cowan landed in enemy territory, not far from his victims, but the jolt of landing un-stuck the switch. Under fire, Cowan throttled up and took off, returning home through heavy fire.

June 30 – literally, the eve of the opening of the Battle of the Somme – found Cowan helping to drive off numerous German aircraft seeking to establish the position of British troops. The next day, 20,000 of them would be killed in action – but countless lives were saved by the RFC disrupting reconnaissance flights. The next day saw heated air combat over the sector. Over Peronne, Cowan saw an enemy aircraft and fired at it until it broke back for German lines. Ten minutes later, he spied two more two-seaters coming west and dived on them, firing half a drum into the lead plane, killing or wounding the observer, whose return fire abruptly stopped. He switched fire to the trailing aircraft, expending the rest of his remaining rounds. Regaining altitude and changing ammunition drums even as he ducked fire from the first machine, Cowan turned on his attacker, fired several bursts from close range, and watched the plane do a side-slip tail slide into a cloud, then reappear as it crashed into the ground. He drove off a fourth German plane later in the patrol. 

On July 27, Cowan saw a BE.2c that was under attack by five German fighters. He managed to drive off all the enemy planes so the BE.2c could complete its mission. Two days later, during a patrol, Cowan attacked a Roland C.II over Morval and sent it diving to earth for a confirmed victory. 

On August 3, while leading four DH.2s, Cowan forced down a German plane hear Sailly and forced two more to crash-land at a nearby airfield. Resuming to the patrol, he identified an LVG B.I and dove to attack. Quickly, the gunner ceased fire and slumped over the side of the fuselage. After a few more bursts, the LVG went into an ever-tightening spiral. Cowan didn’t see it crash, as he went in pursuit of another German observation plane.

Cowan was attacking another LVG on August 9 when return fire hit his plane and he was temporarily blinded by wood splinters. After a short recuperation, he was back in action and on September 16 he shot down another German two-seater in flames over Sailly-Saillisel. 

On October 1, Cowan was transferred to become a flight commander in 29 Squadron. “Awful blow yesterday,” wrote 24 Squadron commanding officer Lanoe Hawker, “as my best pilot was promoted and moved to another squadron.” 

On November 27, he shot down one of the new Halberstadt D.II fighters for what officially would be his seventh victory, but as he maneuvered for a shot at a second Halberstad he collided with another member of his flight, William Spencer FitzRoy Saundby. The Germans buried Cowan in the cemetery at Ablainzevelle, with a marker in German that read, “In memory of a gallant English officer, Captain S.E. Cowan, killed in air combat.” 

Building a DH.2 in 1:72 is a tricky proposition, because of the plane’s unusual configuration, tiny size and heavy use of rigging. For years, the only option was the elderly Revell kit, but in 2003 Eduard put out a new kit in 1:72. One of the editions included masks and photoetched parts. So how hard could it be (he said, employing the literary device of ironic foreshadowing)?

The nacelle (where the pilot and engine are located on the DH.2) comes in five parts: the floor, which is also attached to the lower wings; the cockpit/fuselage sides; a nose cap, with a shelf for the machine gun; and the top of the fuselage. The cabane struts are molded to the fuselage sides, which is a good news/bad news thing, as we’ll see later. The interior is decent, but is missing detail that’s easy to add. One big help for these WWI 1:72 builds is the availability of the instructions on-line for the 1:32 WingNut Wings kits, which are impeccably researched. I also had the very good DH.2 vs. Albatros D.I/D.II from Osprey that has a nice artist’s interpretation of the DH.2 interior. 

I started with the cockpit floor. I painted it ModelMaster acrylic wood, and used colored pencils to apply a subtle grain pattern. The molded-on detail on the floor made this a bit challenging, but I think I managed it well enough. The bar across the floor that attaches to the control column was painted a blue-ish iron color. The rudder bar from the kit was carefully cleaned up, painted a dark metal shade, and installed, followed by very fine cables from the rudder bar leading back under the pilot’s seat made from wires stripped from a dead iPhone charger. 

iPhone chargers live on as control cables in my WWI models’ interiors.

Speaking of the seat, I decided to swap the kit’s seat for Barracuda Studio’s wicker seat, which is amazing in its detail. My daughter helpfully pointed out that the painting in the Osprey book had a seat cushion, which I made from Apoxie Sculpt, using a sharpened thumb tack to make the indented cushion buttons. A coat of Shockoladenbraun enamel gave the cushion a leather look. The resin seat was painted tan and carefully given a wash; the cushion went next, followed by Eduard’s fabric-effect seat belts. A Future-based wash popped out the detail on the floor, followed by a flat coat and the addition of the seat. 

The seat after the addition of the Eduard seat belts and the Airscale decal on the compass.

The sides of the cockpit were painted with Humbrol clear doped linen (CDL) and the frames were picked out in a mixed dark gray color. The internal rigging was emphasized with a pencil, carefully run across the detail to pop it out. The elevator trim quadrant was picked out in aluminum, and the priming pump was painted brass. 

The left side of the cockpit, with added detail…

…And the right side, with a little more added detail

With the molded-on detail finished, I started looking for detail to add. Immediately, I noticed that the left side of the cockpit was missing two copper conduits, while the right side was missing the air pressure gauge and the oil pulsator glasses. The copper conduits ran behind the framing in real life; I cut lengths of copper wire to fit between the frames, and lined them up to appear they were solid, continuous lines. The oil pulsators were made from tiny lengths of brass tubing, while the air pressure gauge was created from a spare photoetched part and some small slices of .035 styrene rod. 

The floor compass was present, and I painted it black, but it really popped out when I added a decal from Airscale’s WWII 1:72 instrument decals; a Luftwaffe position indicator looks a lot like a compass display in this scale! The kit provided three different instrument panel arrangements; I opted for the earliest configuration, because I wanted a model from the time of the Battle of the Somme. I used my same stupid paint tricks to simulate wood on the deck ahed of the instruments and added some wiring to the backs of the instruments.

I spent extra time on the control column. The stick had a trigger squeeze switch on its front that looked a little like the brake handle on a bicycle’s handlebars. I painted the control column, then made the switch from fine wire, which was CA-glued to the back of the stick. Some very thin lead wire was flattened and wrapped around the stick as the flanges holding the switch’s wire in place, and the final touch was a sliver of .2mm lead wire glued to the top of the stick as the ignition “blip” switch. When it was done, I carefully cemented it to the floor.  

A very, very small control column – only five little parts!

With the cockpit dressed up a little, it was time to put the pieced of the nacelle together. The side pieces fit to the floor/lower wing with beveled edges, and these left some notable seams. These were filled with CA glue and the corners were sanded square. The nose cap includes the decking above the rudder pedals where the Lewis gun mounts; this was painted with Testors wood and given similar wood grain patterning with colored pencils. The nose cap and the nacelle sides fit together rather poorly; more CA glue and plenty of careful sanding eliminated the steps and gaps – eventually. I re-scribed some lost detail with a UM scribing tool, using strips of Dymo tape as a guide. 

The interior parts were still a little exposed to damage, so I prepared the top of the nacelle by first painting the two leather straps that held the nacelle together. These were then masked and I painted the interior of this piece a mixture of grays. I installed the internal bulkhead, then nestled the upper nacelle around the cabane struts. It fit reasonably well. I used CA glue to eliminate any seams, then sanded the joint clean while taking care to preserve the detail. 

The internal bulkhead sat too far back inside the nacelle, so I made a new rear cockpit bulkhead and worked it in behind the seat and CA-glued it in place. 

I thought this would be a good time to work on the engine. The cylinder and crankcase are molded as one part, and a spider-like set of pushrods is also supplied, but getting it off the sprue runner proved impossible. Instead, I cut off the collar at the center of the pushrods, added it to the engine and painted the engine a burnt iron color, followed by some drybrushing with a brighter silver color. The kit pushrods were then replaced with lengths of Albion Alloys, giving me stronger and better-looking pushrods. 

Well, that didn’t come off the sprue tree easily…

..But this looks better anyway, The pushrods were later painted aluminum.

I then started fishing around for paint schemes for my plane. Cowan is recorded as scoring victories in three planes – 5925, 5964 and 5966. The latter plane was flown by Lanoe Hawker when he was shot down by Manfred von Richtofen – and as a result it’s probably the most frequently built DH.2. I wanted something different. Wingnut Wings includes markings for 6000 with Cowan’s name attached to it, but it was all clear doped linen at the time it was depicted and I wanted a PC-10-painted aircraft. After finding several photos of 5925, I realized that I could build it the way I wanted – these planes were delivered in clear doped linen with gray on metal and wood surfaces, then PC-10 was added to the fabric upper surfaces and the sides of the nacelle, then the PC-10 was added over the gray areas. 5925 survived to become a training plane in England, by which time it was PC-10 over all upper surfaces and sported a big “1” on the nose. That was not the scheme it wore when Cowan flew it – so why not portray it in the interim scheme of clear doped linen, PC-10 and gray?

The first step was to realistically portray clear doped linen. I painted the bottom of each wing with Humbrol Matt 74, a fairly yellow color – but this first coat was darkened slightly with a couple of drops of raw umber. Once dry, I cut thin strips of Tamiya tape and masked off all the structural parts of the wings – ribs, spars, and aileron structures.

Then, straight clear doped linen was sprayed over the wings and tail. I removed the tape, revealing the darker areas representing the structure. I sprayed a couple of coats of thinned clear doped linen over these parts, toning the effect down. What I wanted was the effect of shadows on the lower wings to simulate the effect of light penetrating the fabric and showing through the wooden framework of the wings. It worked out well!

Oooh! Frilly!

The effect after a the masking was removed and a mist coat of clear-dope linen toned down the ribs

Next, I masked the lower wing and painted the bottom of the nacelle white. I applied the mask included in the Eduard kit for the sawtooth pattern on the bottom of the nacelle and mixed up some Humbrol Matt 116, their version of PC-10. I couldn’t get my tin mixed properly and my tests came out too thin and glossy, so instead I added some brown to olive drab and shot that over the wings and nacelle. Next, I smoothed down the sawtooth mask and added the masks for the fabric sides of the nacelle and sprayed a mixed coat of “battleship gray” to the nacelle.  All worked as advertised, although I remasked and sprayed one side of the nacelle to get a tighter line.  

All this work came at a price: in the process of handling the model, I managed to break three of the four cabane struts! I thought this could be a terminal issue for this build, but I was careful to recover each broken strut and put it in a small bag with its location written on it (as in, “left rear”). The breaks were clean enough thanks to the 19-year-old styrene, and a bit of gel-type CA glue on one end of the strut was all it took to put it in place (with much checking in every axis to make sure it was on straight). A bit of very careful sanding ensured that the joins were nearly invisible. Project saved!