Last weekend at the IPMS Nationals held in Chattanooga, I was able to get my hands on a pre-release boxing of Tamiya’s new tool P-38. As a lover of all things P-38, I enthusiastically shoved everything on my workbench onto the floor and dove right in.

Having been on this a week, there is already so much to discuss (beyond my unbridled enthusiasm from being one of the first in the world to build a kit).

1. The cockpit detail out of the box, is fantastic.
2. The fit and finish is typical Tamiya, if not even better. There are no flaws in the plastic, and the typical issues with building a twin boom fighter appear to have been addressed by some clever engineering.
3. As great as everything is, at least so far, there are some head-scratching issues. Tamiya has decided, and this might be a pre-production issue that will change in the production kit, to rely too heavily on decals for details. The instrument panel decal is fantastic, and not unusual in this scale, so I’m not complaining about that (although I would have liked Tamiya to do the clear plastic IP with decals for the dial faces that go on the back, like their big kits). But, the decision to use decals for the radiator grill faces that sit on both sides of the booms and to create the holes in the cooling jacket of the prominent gun barrels protruding in the nose, is disappointing, at best. Don’t get me started on decal seat-belts (I already ordered HGW fabric belts to replace them). I’m certain that the aftermarket will quickly fill this space, so I suppose none of this is a huge issue.
4. Everything has gone together in a way that is mind blowing and easy easy. Even with multiple panel inserts, leading edge inserts, and other pieces that have obviously been created in a way to release several different variants of the Lightning, it just falls together with no issue. I’ve been working on this sporadically for only a few days this week and already have the fuselage and wings together.
5. Tamiya appears to have engineered a brilliant solution for a notorious tail sitter. They have provided three metallic spheres that sit on cups built and hidden in the model; one in the nose, and one in the engine compartment of both nacelles. I’m sure they’ve made and checked their calculations, but I still can’t help but be a little concerned that the end result will fall back on its tail.

Hopefully mid-week I will have an update with the boom assembly which is where the trouble begins with most other P-38 kits. If you have any other specific things you would like me to focus on, or discuss, let me know.

Until then, I keep the in-progress album updated.