Late summer 1944, an airfield in Eastern England. The crew of a fire truck watch the safe return of 363rd FS Commander Major Ed Hiro from yet another escort mission over occupied Europe.
This build has been something of a beast. Initially started as a quick project using one of the easy Platz P-51s, it was an exercise in decal work to make a decal heavy Pacific scheme. Unfortunately the decals provided in the boxing were unwieldly thick and despite numerous attempts to soften them, they utterly refused to bed into any of the panel lines, leaving them looking like stickers.
I decided not to waste the kit, so I stripped the paint completely and looked for an easy brush paintable scheme to replace it. Fortunately some of the newer Platz boxings have far superior Cartograph decals and one had this nice olive drab scheme.
Since I had already fitted a Heroes Models resin pilot to the cockpit I thought it would be a great chance to use of the new Brengun vacform canopies.
Unfortunately this too lead to problems as, probably due to my poor cutting, the canopy did not sit flush and it took several rounds of putty and sanding to get a neat finish. Fortunately the olive drab is very forgiving of repeated overcoats.
I went with a simple vignette, combining the lovely Ray Rimes Minatures 3d printed Fordson crash tender, with figures from NeOmgea resin.
Unfortunately for Major Hiro, he did not finish his career with a safe return but was killed in action over Europe in September 1944 and this model stands as small tribute to one of the true heroes.
