Mustang "Beguine" racer - converted Arma Hobby 1/72nd scale

 

 

This is the second "Beguine" Mustang racer. This conversion used the Arma kit, instead of the Academy kit utilized to build the first conversion, already posted here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/01/p-51-mustang-beguine-racer-modified.html

The Arma kit is indeed a jewel, an extraordinary rendition with exquisite detail. Modelers that love the type will be in modeling heaven. I just used the kit as a base for the conversion to the racer type, deleting the belly radiator and re-constructing that area, shortening the wings, adding the wingtip pod radiators, getting rid of any military detail, blanking the aft cockpit windows, and dealing with other minor modifications. This second model is for a dear friend, he provided the kit and a Red Pegasus decal sheet that disintegrated into smithereens in contact with water (maybe it was old?). Thus the sheet that I used in the first Beguine (from Draw Decals) was acquired again to complete it. With this model, I got closer to the original green color (which had a bluish/very slightly smoky hue) thanks to Jon Etherton, who kindly sent a photo of a part once belonging to the Beguine. The Beguine was utterly destroyed in its terrible crash, so the part in question may have been retrieved from the first minor bad landing, or during a change of parts before the fatal crash. Which kit did I like best? I like the simplicity yet fairness of the Academy kit, but there is no doubt that the Arma kit, being much newer, is a step above and ahead. Still perhaps they could have provided flaps up or down options, instead of just flaps down (as they went bananas with extra parts anyway, and some photos show the flaps up). It is, nevertheless, indeed, an extraordinary kit. If you are building the racer or a plane that has the aft windows blanked, don't bother at all with the detail inside that area, as nothing will be visible and the racers surely had other arrangements anyway. And if you are building the "Beguine" racer...now that I have struggled to modify two kits, no doubt a resin conversion set will soon appear. And if it doesn't, and you want to go ahead with the conversion, more parts will go unused simplifying the build (belly radiator), but the conversion will offset that gain by demanding quite a bit of elbow grease nonetheless.

The step-by-step build can be visited here:
https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/01/p-51-mustang-beguine-second-model-based.html

And, while you build the Beguine, you can listen to the song after which it took its name:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCYGyg1H56s

And if you know who Fred Astaire was (not with  Ginger Rogers in this case, but with Eleanor Powell) here is a clip; their actual dance begins at about 58 seconds into the reel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZPndC-F5SE

(I am linking these oldies for the benefit of the friend I build the model for, David The Unencumbered By Imaginary Numbers, as he is about 130 years old).

If you have color TV (David doesn't), here is a colorized version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a36g7gUx4js