Airfix North American P-51D Mustang 1:72

Review by Adam Brown

Something to get you in the mood…

The Aircraft…

Do I need to tell all you wonderful people about this fantastic aircraft? Oh just a few words then…

The Mustang was designed following a requirement by the Royal Air Force for a fighter plane to operate at low altitudes in Europe. Unfortunately the Allison engine was a bit pants, so some boffin decided upon placing one of our Merlin engines onto the airframe, and this transformed a lame donkey into the powerhouse stallion we all know and love.
This pleased the Americans who quickly started finding out with this new engine, the Mustang could escort the bombers to the target and back and still have the chance to maybe strafe a few targets of opportunity whilst doing so.
The Mustang quickly started making aces out of a lot of USAAF pilots, including such greats as George Preddy, Clarence Anderson, Urban Drew and Chuck Yeager.

The Kit…

This new Airfix release came out of the blue for me, I wasn’t expecting it in the slightest, but the question is…. Do we need another P-51 in 72nd scale?

The answer is quite simply, YES! This kit is one of Airfix’s finest achievements and looking at some of the features; it’s easy to see why. The kit comes on two very busy little sprues and one clear sprue, with the option of two types of canopy. It has gorgeous recessed panel lines and rivet detail, a beautiful cockpit interior with enough detail to even keep me happy, and the option to drop the flaps, yes that’s right, in 72nd!!  The tyres are weighted and the tread detail is lovely, Airfix are certainly pulling no stops to become world No1!

The only snags I have found so far is the large injection gates and on my example one of the undercarriage legs was a little bent, but easily fixable.

Decals in the box are for a ‘Red Tail’ of the 100th Fighter Squadron flown by 1st Lt Spurgeon Ellington in Italy 1944. Very clever marketing by Airfix as the Lucasfilms movie ‘Red Tails’ has just been released, and including with my kit was a movie poster, which you can also make into a paper plane.

Conclusion…

This really is one of my favourite modelling subjects and Airfix have provided a quality 1:72nd scale kit to fill the modern gap, I’m pretty sure there are hundreds of decals out there to keep everyone happy. The price of the kit was a real delight, being only £5.99 this is a real bargain, and I can recommend this kit to all ages as its beautiful.

SMN Quick Summary rating out of 5

Adam B.