Seversky P-35

 The Seversky P-35 is another of those “obsolete front-line” aircraft that I love.  The P-35 was developed during the rapid expansion of high performance aircraft technology in the mid-1930s.  The P-35 served as the basis of the famous and wildly successful P-47 Thunderbolt.  Despite the P-35 being hopelessly outclassed by front line Japanese aircraft in 1941, the USAAF employed them with varying degrees of success in the defense of the Philippines.  I chose to model this one in USAAF colors as used from December 1941 to February 1942 when the last of the P-35s were destroyed or rendered unflyable.

The Kit
The Academy kit is built upon the decades old Hobbycraft kit.  While the molding is good Academy didn’t add much to the kit detail-wise so there is ample room to add aftermarket photo etch and/or resin.

 The P-35 had the novel feature of a passenger seat aft of the pilot with a large access hatch and window.  This hatch is molded shut on the kit but I decided to pose it open.  This necessitated adding the interior bits.  I used various photo etch and resin from the spares bin and fabricated a seat from Evergreen styrene and Apoxie Sculpt for the seat cushions.  The biggest challenge here was finding references for how the compartment was laid out.  My dear friend and mentor, Mr. Google was a huge help here.

 The kit goes together very well and required a minimum of filler on the seams.  The large cockpit benefited from the Eduard PE set and some extra lead wire to serve as cables, hoses and wires.

 I painted the dorsal surfaces with Tamiya XF-64 Olive Drab that had been lightened with XF-60 Dark Yellow.  I post shaded with highly diluted XF-55 Deck Tan.  I covered the ventral surfaces with XF-19 Sky Grey and post shaded with XF-2 Flat White.

 Period photos show the Philippine P-35s heavily weathered by the harsh tropical climate so I chipped the surfaces more than I normally would have with Slate and Silver Primsacolor pencils.

 The decals are the stock kit decals.  They had a tendency to silver but reacted fairly well to heavy treatments of Mirco Sol solution.

 The final step was a heavy wash of black Grumbacher artist oils thinned with Turpenoid.