The Little World

This is to be a dual-build…two kits constructed at the same time to make a team for display. But the team members will not to be entirely identical – one plane is a short-tailed P40E and one a long-tailed P40N. Their common point of reference is the Curtiss design and the fact that both marques were used in Alaska for the northern campaigns.

As usual, Hobby Boss has provided a good start to the exercise – the standard plastic pack with the parts. In this case some of them will be superfluous as the planes will not be carrying bombs. Another couple of spares for the armoury.

The decals provided would suggest Chinese Nationalist, Soviet, or USAAF markings. Some will be useful for the exercise, and Hobby Boss graphics are by no means to be sneezed at.

I am pleased to see the variation in the planes has been brought out in some of the detailing – the ” N ” Is definitely a longer fuselage and the cockpit area much modified from the short-tailed ” E “. There are different wheel treatments as well, and I may find more changes as I build. I note as well that they make a different fuselage for their P-40 B/C variant with the multiple machine guns on the nose. If I can find evidence that this earlier form was used in Alaska I’ll complete one of them.

Addendum: Research suggests a lot of the P-40 B/C ended up in Russia. So we grab another when we next get to the shop.