Friday 31 July 2015

El Salvadorian Cadillac of the sky

The latest bit of high performance metal to emerge from my hanger =)

Continuing my love of esoteric schemes for WW2 warbirds I chose the El Salvador air force (Fuerza Aérea Salvadoreña) for this P51D from Italeri. I had a lot of fun with this one. It's appropriately beat up and grimy =D

 El Salvador operated a squadron of seven P51D's in what was (hilariously) named the 'Soccer War' against Honduras in 1969.

Interestingly, Honduras also operated ex USAAF aircraft meaning that both sides used obsolete allied aircraft against each other!
I love that shit!
 
 This kit was a bit tricky to put together, those prop blades broke off more times than I care to remember...
 
 The 1969 conflict was the last time the Mustang was used offensively.
Look at how grubby that looks, fantastic  =)


The base is a CD... I like using CD's.

 The original idea was to have a display base for many planes. The little horseshoe shaped thing is a washer I cut in half to magnetize it to the base stem.

 I actually found it really hard to get photos of what the ground looks like in El Salvador... this is the artists impression...

 'KING KONG GRAB PLANE!'

 'Off we go, into the wild blue yonder!'


 Most of the scheme came from these pics.

The next one gets this on its nose =)

Cool, so next up will be the three Focke Wulf's, and following that, something with camels!
Ace

2 comments:

  1. Looks properly weathered to me. :)
    I'm more of a Spitfire kind of guy but the mustang is certainly a cool plane.

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    1. Thank you, I really enjoy beating the crap out of a colour scheme =)

      I would be remiss to say that I didn't think the Spitfire was the most beautiful plane in the world - I know it's such a cliche', but it's just so graceful. I will be doing a late version Spit soon after the Focke Wulf's which are up next, again it wont be in 'typical' colours!

      Having said that I have always loved the Mustang. The more you look at it as you work/paint, the stranger the shape of the plane becomes, but it just seems to work? The Mustang can look completely different from so many angles!

      Ace


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