P-38J Lightning over Europe

[Mike]

P-38J Lightning over Europe

1:48 Eduard (1170)

The Lockheed Lightning was designed for the US Army Airforce during the beginning of Britain's WWII in 1939, and was ready for America's entry to the war where it performed well, despite its large size and unusual configuration. Initial troubles with tail flutter were quickly fixed, by the addition of dive spoilers, and the airframe matured into the J toward the end of 1943. The aircraft was much loved by its pilots, as it was fast, manoeuvrable but with a few foibles to catch the unwary. It served in Europe, the Mediterranean and the Far East with distinction, and went on to become a night-fighter, with a radar housed in a pod beneath the nose, in front of the nose gear bay.

The Lightning name was given to the aircraft by the British in the run up to their subsequently aborted purchase of a large number of aircraft, and stuck with the US forces rather than the unglamorous "Atalanta" chosen by the Americans. Although it was used in all theatres, it was most suited to the Far East, where it was ideally suited to the long range missions, and its high speed gave it an advantage, allowing it to sweep in multiple times in its target, raking the lightly armoured Japanese aircraft with its formidable armament on each pass.

The Kit

This limited edition from Eduard is based upon the Academy P-38J plastic, and is a substantial upgrade from the base kit. Inside the nicely appointed box are nine sprues of the grey/green styrene, typical of an Academy production. A single sprue of clear parts and three (redundant) rubberised tyres are also included within the Academy produced section of the kit, which are bagged in a number of bags, although not in individual sprues. The Eduard upgrades are substantial, and include three bags of resin parts, two frets of Photo-Etch (PE) metal, one of which is pre-painted, and a set of canopy masks. Of course there is also a large decal sheet too, and a substantial glossy instruction manual in my preferred A4 book style, which also includes the painting and decaling diagrams. First impressions are good, with the Academy kit already well respected, although a little sparse in detail for the perfectionists. It is the Eduard parts that will make this kit a little bit special.

Construction is fairly straight forward and takes up only four pages of the booklet, although the pages are quite busy. The cockpit is a complete replacement of the original kit assembly, and improves upon the detail massively. Comparing the parts side-by-side shows the deficiency of the kit parts, and the finesse of detail of the resin parts is impressive throughout. The casting blocks are quite large however, so plenty of sawing will be required to liberate the cockpit floor, rear deck for the radio gear and the seat from their stubs. Once done however, you will be rewarded by some very nice parts that have good strong locating tabs and large mating surfaces, resulting in a highly detailed floor that won't collapse during handling. The cockpit sidewalls are supplied as wafers that attach to the sides of the cockpit tub by keyed mating surfaces, ensuring that alignment is just right. Resin rudder pedal and a very nicely detailed control column and yoke finish off the main resin parts, while the PE is used to provide the pilot's seat armour, throttle quadrants and the all-important seatbelts, which are of course pre-painted. The instrument panel is a sandwich of resin back-plate, pre-painted instruments and the top layer of the instrument panel and bezels, resulting in a very convincing replica. The cockpit coaming is moulded into part D8, and is covered in a material texture, which Eduard would have you remove, thereby exposing the instrument panel. I'm not 100% sure whether this was the case for all Lightnings, but it does expose a bit of a blank area behind the instrument panel, which has a flat back. More references required there before making a decision, I think. The two halves of the fuselage blister are then joined, and as the wings are moulded into the fuselage, a substantial part of the build is completed early on.

The twin booms are built up next, beginning with the main gear bays, which have horribly blank side walls. A set of PE skins are included for the roof however, which will probably throw the blank bay walls into sharper focus. A little scratch-building would probably be in order here if you feel it worth the time. The gearbay legs are made up at that point, and the instructions would have you add them then, but they will easily fit in once the bay is complete, so they can be left off until the majority of construction is complete. The gear bay legs are the kit parts, but with new PE oleo scissor links supplied, the moulded in kit parts removed, and a brake line part added from PE. The wheels and tyres are a work of art in resin, and a testament to the impending prominence of rapid Prototype design of aftermarket parts. The tyres and inner hub detail are moulded as one piece each, while separate parts are supplied for the outer hub on each side. The outer hub is spoked, and the area between spokes will be hollow once the thin skin of resin is removed with the tip of a new #11 blade. It is quite a delicate and tedious job, but ultimately rewarding when mated to the inner hub, exposing all that detail through the gaps. Separate painting of the inner hub and outer parts might be sensible, to ensure thorough coverage of the fluted internal areas and back of the spokes. The nose-wheel is similarly detailed, and both hubs are spoked, so more cleaning out of the resin skin between each spoke is needed, resulting in daylight being visible through the spokes. The tread on the tyres is excellent, with diamond checked mainwheels and an unusual oval tread block on the nose wheel. The raised Goodyear maker's mark is also present on each tyre, so could be picked out in a very pale grey to add a little interest to the wheel area. PE hubcaps are supplied as optional extras for the nose wheel, but it would be a real shame to cover up that detail, unless you're determined to be as true to the original as possible.

The booms build up around the gear bays, and have separate intake lips for those characteristic side-pods, with a piece of PE mesh fore and aft stopping that see-through look. Some smaller intakes on the side are supplied as delicate resin parts, adding a little finesse to the area. The booms then drop-fit to the underside of the wing, and the tail is sandwiched between them. The engine fronts are added to the boom/wing combination, and have some mesh effect moulded into the three intake trunks, which would benefit from some dry brushing and a dark wash to bring out the detail.

The fuselage has the nose gear bay moulded in, and as a by-product of this, the detail out of the box is pretty poor. To remedy this, Eduard supply two long sidewall skins in PE, which are festooned with raised rivets, in order to busy the area up, plus a small strengthening beam across the roof. The roof of the bay has a few wires and bulkheads moulded in, but they are a little weak by modern standards, and could do with more work if you feel the need. The gear leg gets a new PE oleo scissor link, a towing hitch and an odd little rounded W shaped part just above the scissor link. Again, the gear leg can be left off until the main work is completed, to save any damage during handling. The nose of the Academy Lightning is a separate part, to give the most versions from the same basic mould, and to allow better moulding of the nose parts. The largest part is built up from two halves, and the curved tip is a separate part to enable the gun troughs to be well moulded with deep depressions into which the .50cals and the 20mm cannon barrels are placed. Detail on the guns is adequate, with quite well defined holes in the cooling jackets, but no hollow barrel, so it's out with the pin-vice if you want to add a bit of realism. I'm almost certain that one of the brass barrel manufacturers will already produce suitably detailed replacements if you feel that the prominent nose area would benefit from extra detail. The gear bay doors was quite well detailed from the box, and with careful painting should suffice for the job, which then begs the question - just how much of the gear bay sidewall detail will be seen?

The large turbo-superchargers were initially installed in the leading edge of the wing, but were moved to the top of the booms to reduce instances of battle-damage, and here Eduard have created beautifully detailed replacements to the kit parts, which are conspicuous on the top surface of the booms, again though, you'll need to cut off the rather large moulding stub, which covers the whole underside area of the part. A nice pair of resin intakes are added to the area forward of the turbo-superchargers, and a PE surround to the rear ¾ of the unit, which looks like a piece of heat-shielding to protect the skin of the boom.

The canopy of the Lightning was somewhat of an oddity, having three movable panels. The side panels slid down into the fuselage, in much the same way as a car door window, while the top panel hinged back toward the rear of the aircraft. This led to problems with overheating of the cockpit in tropical areas of operation, and resulted in pilots going to war in shorts, pumps and a parachute. The kit's canopy is broken down the same way, with a separate front windscreen part, rear canopy, and a three-piece central part. The central part is built up before being applied to the model, but I would suggest installing the front and rear, then building up the centre sides first in order to get them at the correct angle. The side parts can be left off to depict a cockpit opened for flying, but there appears to be no mechanism to depict the top part hinged back, so a little scratch-building would be in order if you intend to pose the canopy fully open. Clarity of the parts is good, although one of the parts on my review sample had a few scuffs on it. Those can be polished out though, and a dip in Klear or Alclad Aqua Gloss will doubtless improve clarity further. A small PE rail and clear resin gunsight are included in the extras provided by Eduard, and these install in the windscreen before it is added to the fuselage.

The stores supplied in this boxing are straight forward - a pair of 500lb bombs or a pair of additional fuel tanks. The tanks have their pylons moulded in, while the bombs have them separate. The main body of the bomb is made from separate halves, with a spinner in the rear, and the fins also made from two additional parts. Eduard provide replacement fins for the bombs, which require the modeller to remove the plastic fins from the parts, gluing the stub to the main body, to which you then add the new PE fins, giving them a much more realistic scale appearance.

Decals

Decals are printed by Cartograf, and are up to their usual standards of excellent, with good colour density, register and sharpness of printing. From this large sheet you can depict one of the six choices, as follows:

• P-38J-10-LO 38th FS, 55 FG, Nuthampstead AB, England Nov 1943 - Olive drab over grey with a white Triangle on the tail and skull on the nose
  
• P-38J-15-LO 392nd FS, 367th FG, Juvincourt AB, France, Dec 1944 - bare metal with olive drab anti-glare panels on the nose and inner nacelles, a naked lady in a cocktail glass on the nose, and D-Day stripes on wings and booms.
  
• P-38J-25-LO 392nd FS, 367th FG, Juvincourt AB, France, 1944 - bare metal with olive drab anti-glare panels on the nose and inner nacelles, a naked lady on the nose and D-Day stripes.
  
• P-38J-10-LO 55th FS, 20th FG, King's Cliffe AB, England, 1943-44 - Olive drab over grey with a white Triangle on the tail and shark mouth on the engine nacelles.
  
• P-38J-10-LO 485th FS, 370th FG - Olive drab over grey with a white Triangle on the tail, reclining pig on the nose and red/blue spinners.
  
• P-38J-25-LO, 492nd FS, 367th FG, Peray, France, Aug 1944 - bare metal with olive drab anti-glare panels on the nose and inner nacelles, a mule kicking a swastika on the nose, and a red tip to the nose.
  

As this is a European special boxing, there should be plenty of options for most modellers straight out of the box.

Conclusion

A welcome update of a (not so) old staple of a kit. Eduard build upon the basics of the Academy plastic, and bring it bang up-to-date, with a couple of exceptions in the landing gear bays as noted in the main review. The build should be easy, and the resin parts add plenty of extra detail, although the pouring stubs could prove frustrating if you don't have the proper tools to remove them. If you resort to sanding or your motor tool, please remember to steer clear of the dust by wearing a mask of some sort.

The decal options are varied, and there are a few that will require you to do some overspraying of invasion stripes, which would be best suited to airbrush painting, but with a little ingenuity they shouldn't be beyond the brush painter.

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[Basosz]

Nice review Mike, thanks!

Always loved the Lightning so this is going on my wanna-have list