It’s too bad AMT isn’t still making airplane kits- I really love their P-40’s. They are great kits, and if you can get your hands on any AMT P-40, I highly recommend it.
I’ve recently finished their P-40F “Short tail”, so called to differentiate it from, appropriately enough, the “Long tail”. A 20″ fuselage extension was added to the P-40 lines, so the “F” model had a mix of short tail and long tail versions. Most of the times when you see an AMT P-40F, it’s the long tail version. Thankfully I was able to find one on Ebay a while back, and it now sits proudly on my model shelf.
I won’t go into too much detail, because it’s like all the other AMT P-40s I’ve built, so if you’d like more details on the AMT builds, do a search for AMT P-40 in the site search.
There are a few details specific to the F model with this kit. When it was released, the shape of the nose was “wrong” apparently. I put that in parentheses because I’m such a relaxed, OOB builder that I rarely pay any attention to that type of discussion. It must’ve been recognizable enough that AMT (to their credit) began shipping a corrected resin nose.
Based on my experience with trying to use a resin replacement tail for their “K” model, I decided I’d rather just stick to the styrene, “wrong” or not. (It still looks like a P-40F to me…..) Plus, a modeling friend was looking for the resin nose for a project he has going, so I was able to help him out with that.
The build itself was a simple, satisfying project. There are two decal options with the kit, though one is actually for a long tail F. The markings I used are for a short tail- thankfully I had a photo in a reference book to look at. (To be honest, I almost used the other markings just for a chuckle.)
The paints are a combination of Model master Acryl and Pollyscale paints. I didn’t have the appropriate colors on hand, so I used a mixture of RLM 65 and white for the undersides, and US Desert Storm tan and white for the uppers. I figured after all the weathering I was going to do to it, it wouldn’t make much of a difference anyway.
The weathering was done with various oil washes, smears and smudges to give it a beat up look. I’m happy with the result. It’s one more P-40 model in my quest to get all of the P-40 series completed and on the shelf. Maybe I’ll do a long tail F/L next, or an M…. or maybe even the P-40R! š
