P51B Mustang Fighter

The separate tail section is the only curious aspect of this kit, which is excellent in every other way. The fit is superb, as it is with every other Academy model I've built, and the detail is terrific, especially for the scale. The wooden floor of the Mustang's cockpit is recreated, as is the tread on the tires. The box comes with two types of exhaust stacks, bombs, drop-tanks, and rockets, and a choice of standard or Malcolm hoods, which can both be posed open. There might be some issues with the shape of the wings being incorrect for the P51B, but if you can overlook that minor shortcoming, this is a wonderful, hassle-free build.

It builds well with little in the way of fit problems. There are essentially 4 halves of the plane. Each side is split into two sections, and when pairing them together there can be some alignment problems. There is a good number of decal markings available on the sheet, it has several optional loads and the kit has good detail to it. The price is reasonable for a kit of this type and the huge majority of builders are not that concerned with the finer details of things and be very happy with the results.

I have built three of these, I am hoping to build about five more as I am useing them for a scale airfield. The kit is fairly clean minus some alignment issues. The parts don't require a whole bunch of sanding though. The instructions are pretty straight forward and simple to read. I have had an issue on two that I have made with the decals, no matter what I do, they wont soften that much. I have tried decal setting and softening solution along with heat. I think it is a problem with them being a bit thick.