The Boeing P-26A kit by Revell might have been finished in the original USAAC colours had I access to modern decal sheets ( this would be the case if I had bought one at the local hobby shop. But I got mine for free with very old decals. The trade-off is significant. ) But modern aftermarket decals would have been at least $ 25 extra to buy. The decision on what to do was easily made – there were Chinese Nationalist decals in the decal box.
The plane did have an honourable fighting history in the USAAC in the Phillipines and in the various Chinese wars in the 30’s. I’m not sure if they did not fight against the Soviets as well as the Japanese. In any case, the Chinese Nationalist insignia were available from a previous build so I went with those.
The assembly of the plane was a little fraught due to the warpage in the chin section. Heat and clamps cured this. The rivets were another issue but these are so ingrained in the structure that no easy solution offered itself – better to just paint them and be proud.
The rigging was not as daunting as it might have been – there were inadequate diagrams on the instruction sheet but the fold-over baggie illustration filled in the missing information. Then it was a case of deciding which holes to use and opening them up with mini-drills. The rubber string went in beautifully and sealing it off with cyanoacrylate glue completed the job.
I am so pleased that I’ve not laid a ghost to rest. I have a die-cast example of this plane in USAAC colours that can set alongside the Chinese livery. But I still want to get a copy of the Schiffer book…
The Little World 
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