Here is another of Eduard's nice 1/48th scale kits that I have added to my growing collection. I built this one straight out of the box. Depending on what version you select the Eduard P-39 kit is hard to beat for the price, beautifully molded detail with paint masks and nose weight included (and in some kits, stunning photo-etch details as well... skip the photo-etch if you are not experienced or don't like the fiddly bits, as they require magnifiers, an extra pair of hands and super glue). BTW - Eduard's 1/48th Hellcat series is outstanding as well.
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The last
time I built a P-39 it was the venerable Monogram kit (which is still a nice
build for a novice or a budget build) however, the Eduard release gave us
an excellent P-39 to work with and go all out with what you got in the box.
I
elected to build this kit "Out of the Box" (no photo-etch) and
used the kit decals to depict Wahl Eye II, flown by Lt. Eugene Wahl on the
island of New Guinea in 1942. Since this aircraft was originally manufactured
for the RAF (P-400), it was painted in the standard temperate camouflage scheme
of Dark Green and Dark Earth. Bell used Dupont paints that were pretty close
to the RAF specs... although my research indicated that the underside colour was
most likely a grey and not a blue as specified in the instructions. (I settled
on FS 36463 and did the upper in 30118 and 34092 with some scale effect and
weathering... so not exact