Here she is: Revell's '60s-vintage 1/32 P-51B Mustang in a 1983 boxing, with the RAF-style Malcolm hood as the included canopy option. The aircraft depicted is the second of three Mustang Mk. III's flown by renowned Polish ace Eugeniusz 'Dziubek' Horbaczewski, C/O of No. 315 (Polish) Squadron.
Besides the engine and cockpit work outlined previously, the only major addition was a nice set of Barracuda resin wheels and block-tread tires to replace the kit's pretty featureless ones. The old kit actually includes underwing pylons--which I had completely forgotten--but no stores; I happened to have a set of True Details resin Napalm tanks unused from another project, so I just 'retro-d' them back to their original 75-gallon drop tank configuration. (This aircraft's last combat outing with Horbaczewski at the controls was a long-range Beaufighter-escort mission to Norway, so the tanks are a fitting addition.)
Paints are Tamiya acrylics; the excellent decals are from Techmod's extensive 'Polish Mustangs' sheet.
[BTW, the rough-edges and uneven spacing of the invasion stripes are actually 'toned down' from what photos show for the real aircraft. There's a short clip on YouTube of Horbaczewski 'rolling out' for takeoff, showing parts of the fuselage stripes on both sides of the a/c...and they look like they were painted by a blind man. (Or an aircrewman in a hurry, who had better things to attend to!)]
Biggest challenge was the kit's pretty awful clear parts; big square 'hinge holders' (for the original greenhouse-style canopy) had to be carefully chiseled from both windscreen and quarter-lights, and those areas made smooth and clear again. The Malcolm hood part was too short length-wise to be displayed closed, and too short in height to fit in an open position. I ended up adding on extensions in the way of the 'sliding' portion of the bubble to stretch the height a bit, but it's still a very near thing.
Despite quite a few published profile illustrations to the contrary, this particular a/c was the only one of Horbaczewski's (3) Mustangs to carry invasion stripes; FB382 was flown from mid-June through July 1944, until 'traded in' for the more-frequently-depicted FB387--the aircraft bearing the well-known victory tally for his four V-1 kills. [It is possible that FB382 was marked for one or more V-1 victories as well, though no photographic evidence seems to exist to show them.]
The third-highest-scoring Polish fighter ace was KIA on 18 August 1944 during a 'Rodeo' mission over France; he was credited with 3 Fw190s during that flight before he himself was shot down, for a final total of 16.5 aircraft confirmed (and one probable) with 4 V-1 missiles destroyed.
