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New Eduard 1/48 VLR P-51 kit


Waltz41
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Over a year and a half ago, when it was first announced that Eduard was going to be releasing a brand new 1/48 P-51 kit, I contacted the company and asked them to make a dedicated VLR (Very Long Range) P-51 boxing.  Mostly, the P-51 is the same, the main difference being the twin antenna's on the spine, but also they used 110-and 165-gallon drop tanks with sway braces.  I started off sending in photos, and eventually they told me they were going to do it.  I worked with another gentleman to come up with paint schemes to choose from, and they ended up including one of every squadron (although they were going to leave one out at first which I told them was a crime!).  I wrote the forward introduction for the instruction manual, continued to answer questions and gave advice on the kit and markings, and now......it's released.  I also was able to add an article/interview of my veteran friend, a VLR pilot in the war, in their monthly online magazine.  They put his airplane on the box art cover for that reason as well.  It's kind of a little bucket list type item to help with something like this.  I'm very happy to share my knowledge on those missions and share Bill's story as well.  

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Here's the forward I wrote for the instruction manual, giving an overview of the VLR missions and the 3 fighter groups involved.

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And here is the first couple pages of the interview article with my friend Bill.  What's really great is I was able to include all original pictures from his collection, as well as some documents and maps and other items, from him and the family of the pilot he shared the P-51 with.

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Wow, I think we haven´t seen such a post about a 1/48 scale kit in this section before. Incredible background info, thanks very much for sharing! Are you going to build the model?

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Definitely!  I have over 50 1/48th scale Mustangs built on display in my basement, so I've probably made close to 75 or so in my life 🙂

 

Sorry, I honestly was just very proud of getting in a lot of the history in with the kit, and like I mentioned, as a model builder myself, it's kind of a bucket list thing to be involved like this with one!! 

 

 

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