Napier Field, Alabama, late 1943
Even here, in the humid air of the southern United States, thousands of miles from the nearest hostile force, the raging conflagration has an impact - thousands of young pilots take their first flights from airfields across the south, from Florida to California - many in P-40 Warhawks, but few as colourful of those of the 337FG
This build actually began as a 1944 GB entry, but some research shows that the photos are more likely to be from late 1943 - although there is some dispute over the date, location and unit identity of the Parrotheaded P-40s, at least several full colour photos exist.
The kits are quite basic, designed for push fit assembly - F-Toys made a more detailed Warhawk in their VS9 collection, but it is harder to find.
Basic assembly is pretty quick.
Masking is rather fiddly. Oddly despite being available for a long while, there are no paint masks or aftermarket for this particular kit.
Decals are from Printscale.
Thoughfully they provide a cutout for the exhausts, although fitting isn't prefect on the wing curves and a lot of softener and some paint touchups were needed.
Unframing was successful. I added exhaust stains with watercolour pencils.
The base was a simple representation of the concrete slabs from the photos. I decided to go with the large tanker to make a more eye catching combination. Unfortunately suitable decals for these are not forthcoming in scale but I guessed that a domestic example confined to a training field might not need all the logos seen on many examples in theatre.
Thanks for reading, comments and feedback welcome and you can see this model at Telford this year on the SIG144 table.
