This is the Hasegawa boxing of the P-3C. This was a 2 year (on&off) project that is finally completed. I built this for my Dad as a surprise (he still doesn't know, so don't nobody say nuthin!). He flew P-3's in the Navy in the early 70's through the early 80's. This is one of the planes he flew in VP-9 and the base it sits on is a replica of the tarmac at Moffit Feild, CA, where he flew out of. I was able to replicate the base using Google Earth.
The kit was completely rescribed. This was my first time rescribing something, and in hindsight, I should've picked a smaller 1/72 plane for a first time scriber. That was a huge job! Many stencils needed to be used from the original decal sheet because the newer planes carry different stenciling. Some decals were stolen from a ROG P-3C I also have. All squadron specific decals were printed by me, and the insignia on the tail was drawn and printed from someone over at FSM boards (Thanks John!). I decided to add the AGM12 Bullpup missiles to the wing pylons to make it look more interesting (these can be removed), as you don't normally see P-3's armed like this. They did sometimes carry mavericks, and more recently carry Harpoons but they weren't around back in the day. Also, the kit comes with mk 84 torpedoes that the instructions will have you mount on the wing pylons, however I was told that due to their being quite sensative, they were never left hung out in the cold (always in bomb bay). The rest of the kit is pretty much OOB, I added brake lines and springs to the main gear, and static discharge wicks on all control surfaces. The base was made from Ampersand Pastelbord (cool stuff!). All panel lines were scribed in, then I used Polly Scale(?) Old and New concrete, followed by masking and spraying of the white markings, then weathered the whole thing and finally added some wheel chalks which are actually functional! There's also an acrylic case that fits on the base to go over the plane that I had made to keep the dust bunnies out!
Hope you enjoy, and hope Dad enjoys!
