I have completed what likely is my last build of the year, a member of the Thunderbolt family, the P-43A Lancer.
Let's call this one ... Dad. Grandpa is Seversky's P-35. And the son is the much more famous P-47 Thunderbolt.
This kit was a first for me in a couple of ways. First time I've built a Lancer. First time I've tackled a Dora Wings kit (with 2 more in the stash). I admittedly don't have a lot of background on the P-43, but aside from its family geneology, I do know that the Lancer really didn't serve with any US units other than in a training capacity. The reasons for this seem to point toward its under-performing in the role for which it was intended and perhaps an under-powered power plant. Like the P-35, other countries used the Lancer in active units, although I never found much on whatever its exploits may have been.
Now to the kit. Overall it is a good kit, but oh my, it was quite an adventure to get to the finish line. The instructions are hot garbage. And I do mean smelly hot garbage. Parts location is spotty at best - just an arrow pointing to a general location for many of the smaller parts. Online references were out there, but I didn't find any to the level of detail that I needed. In some cases I opted to leave certain interior parts off.
The kit comes with a PE fret that I felt was a bit on the thick side. As a result, I was not able to properly bend the lap belts. I left them off rather than having the clearly resting in open air over the seat.
There were some parts that did not seem to include enough as per the awful instructions, or too many. If the former (certain engine parts), those got left on the sprue. If the latter, I used whatever I needed and discarded the remainder.
There are no locator pins on this kit. But if one takes their time, it actually goes together rather nicely. I only encountered one obvious mis-alignment, under the rear portion of the canopy; that one was easily sanded down and concealed beneath the canopy. Otherwise I had seams typical of a Monogram kit that were easily dealt with.
When I dry-fitted the canopy, I initially thought it was one of the best fits I'd ever seen on a kit not coming out of Tamiya's (or similar) production line. But when I got it glued into place, the fit was not at all good. The rear non-moving portion of the canopy was properly aligned to the fuselage, but the center portion did not meet correctly. One side was inline with the rear, while the other was not. As the center piece would slide back during operation, it seems to me it should have not been flush anywhere with the rear piece. To top things off with the canopy, after it was set and not going anywhere without risking damage to the canopy parts, I realized I had neglected to put the pilot's head rest into place. I opted not to risk clear parts damage to get that head rest into place. Luckily it's not really that easy to notice the missing head rest.
I painted with mostly Vallejo colors - US olive drab and US neutral gray, although there is some AK Interactive XTreme Metallics and Mission Models colors in use as well. Decals performed very well. I opted to build this as a new Lancer with very little weathering (I did put down some dirt wash on the engine crank case).
And how about a family portrait?
Two Tamiya -47s and one Monogram Pro-Modeler -47, the DW -43, and a Hobby Craft -35.
Next up is another first-time kit for me, Meng's Me163 in 1/32. I doubt I'll be able to complete that one prior to the end of the year, but one never knows.