Early 1945, Ohakea, a peaceful corner of New Zealand seems a world away from the brutal combat raging across most of the world.
One of the instructors of No. 4 OTU is preparing to take up a Kittyhawk for a combat exercise, but this pristinely prepared Silver Barge is the personal mount of Squadron Leader Douglas St George who is personally supervising its preparation for flight. No pressure then on the pilot or ground crew....
Part of the 1945 GB on the Kampfgruppe144 forum, this model comes from the AFV club kit.
Shelf Oddity decals of Poland provide markings for this nice, extra polished, disarmed Kittyhawk that flew as a commanding officer's special out of Ohakea in New Zealand in January 1945, best known for a 'race' against a PV-1 at the airfield from which I believe this photo originates.
Most 144th modellers will be familiar with this kit, it is widely available and makes a reasonable Kittyhawk, although it is slightly simplified compared to the F-Toys VS9 model. I will have to fit my own aerial mast for example and some people scratch build the air intake mesh, but I generally don't bother as it won't be particularly visible in the vignette scene.
The RNZAF model built up pretty quickly along with a Canadian cousin I built at the same time, interior painted, just needs seatbelts then the canopies can be fitted. Since it has a red spinner, I left the prop off to paint later.
Added canopy (with a fair amount of filler needed) and masked (not easy, no masking set for this kit)
Shelf Oddity decals go on smoothly.
My technique for metallics is to gloss over the decals then brush paint the anti-glare panels with matt paint and the fabric areas with a brushable silver over the top, seems to work well. No weathering on this Admiral's Barge.
Justa straight forward base. I went for the Chevrolet truck after reading an article about a resorted example which tells that it was transferred to NZ from the Solomon Islands late or post-war, so makes sense that others might have had the same journey. I painted the star out as they didn't appear on many Pacific theatre examples.
Figures are from 3djson and the plaque from Name It Plates.
Thanks for reading, comments and feedback welcome. It will be on display at Telford with SIG144.
