AK-47 in 20mm - Mustang Cavalier-ish

[Gunbird]

To motivate myself to get the airbrush out (having done noothing with for the past 8 months or so) I'm going to cobble together a Mustang Cavalier(ish) for my future (or not) AK-47 stuff. (though I might paint it by hand anyway)

A what? Mustang Cavalier. Post War private development of the P-51 into personal aircraft. Then turned back into a combat aircraft (and then again in the shape of the Piper Enforcer but that is beyond the scope of this build). And it looks like this:



Most visible changes are 3 hardpoints under each wing and the wingtiptanks. So that is all I will do.

in the last few weeks I've traded some of my own kits for parts needed for this build, and retrieved the most suitable P-51 kit I had from the attic. More importantly, I managed to refind my bag of wall plugs that are vital to my aircraft stand so now I can start converting aircraft again (oh yes, there will be more).

The humble beginnings:


Academy P-51D (without the fillet in the tail...so be it), Hasegawa Aircraft Weapons Set 1 for bombs or rocket pods and the Academy A-37B Dragonfly purely for the wingtiptanks and the rocket pods/napalm bombs. I'm thinking Napalm on stations 3 and 4, and rocket pods for 2 and 5 stations, and possibly SUU-14A dispeners on the outer stations (clustermunitions) or small bombs, not sure yet. It's not supposed to be realistic anyway  :grin:

Tomorrow night I'll start the fuselage with the flight stand plug. Some Milliput will be involved to get it all to fit and stay in place. A magnet will be used for the nose  for the prop to spin freely (and come off the aircraft for transport)

[Gunbird]

Wife decided we needed some quality time and so we hit an Italian tonight. Nice to have a chat without having to worry about the kids for once. She went to bed, and I went into the hobbyroom, so had to rush things a bit as my time is very limited. Installed the plug, trimmed the wings, fitted the tanks (keeping the winglets btw), magnetised the prop, closed the wheelbays.



(yes, my hobby room has purple walls. Don't ask, this used to be the wifes hobby room before we met and she likes vibrant colours)
Hardly any gaps to fill, so next week time for some fine sanding and adding milliput to strenghten and fix the plug in place, laminate the inside of the plug and add the magnet and fill in the wheelwells cause the covers sagged a bit inward. Install the hardpoints, let her dry and then she should be ready for primer.

[carlos marighela]

Nice!

[commissarmoody]

Why did you hit an Italian? What did he do to you?

[carlos marighela]

Why did you hit an Italian? What did he do to you?

Obvious ain't it? Always get your hit in first when dealing with the Camorra.

[commissarmoody]

Obvious ain't it? Always get your hit in first when dealing with the Camorra.

true, you  can never be too careful.

[Gunbird]

Time for some fluff 

The Lions of Nezele

Mysterious pilots flying the regime’s Cavalier II’s. Some say they are CIA, some say one is a Uzbek mercenary, others claim there’s a illegitimate son of General-for-Life Emmanuel Nwude trying to find a place in the dynasty, some even claim former Third Reich Luftwaffe pilots are amongst them.  Who knows?

They are the 7th Attack Wing (Glorious Lions) and they fly Golf Alfa to Foxtrot (Fxotrot sporting Garfield nose art). They are camouflaged in the standard Nelengele fashion of 3 tone camouflage, with sharks teeth. Compared to other aircraft in the Nelengele inventory they look a bit rough, but the mechanics make sure that underneath the peeling paint and oil stains beats a strong mechanical heart.

The 7th operates from Nezele AFB which is a old single hardend  4200 feet runway dating back from before WW2 (formerly known as RAF Bloodieot), housing the small fleet of 6 Cavaliers as well as a few transports (possibly expanded with a helicopter group in the near future if rebel activity increases). The close location to the disputed border area and rebel camps makes this base vital for the government, and it is well fortified.  The Red Cross has requested use of a section of the airbase to fly in food and medical aid for the war stricken local community, but sofar this request has been denied, meaning most food is trucked in with occasional airdrops.

The rebels refer to the close support aircraft as Akapi’s (“ scorpion” in the native tongue) and rumour has it there is a bounty for capturing any pilot (dead or alive). Sofar no Cavaliers have been shot down, though 1 suffered a landing mishap recently, involving a very unlucky flock of flamingos and copious amounts of pink feathers.

[pocoloco]

Nice conversion work and fluff too 

Makes the hobby project always more interesting when there's good background for it.

Are you planning on modelling the whole attack wing?

[Gunbird]

Not in 20mm, hell no! In my (not so many) games I noticed one of each type is more then enough in your collection. Unless you dogfight in 20mm, but that is just insane (and yes, I'm very slowly working on that)

Now, if I ever do AK-47 in 1/600 (maybe in the future), or the Soccer War (also in 1/600) then yes (mostly because I'm copying the FAS Mustang Cavalier including camouflage and roundels for my fictional country of Nelengele, and so it would work for both games)