Small Scale Military Headquarters

Heres an email from Sam Sox Jr on the BBI repaint of "Cripes The 3rd":

I sent all artwork, color profiles, pointed out the errors and thought they would apply the data accordingly. I looks like to me that as the scale of the markings on the GMP model were 1/32 on a 1/35 scale model, this 1/18th scale model has markings in 1/24th. Can't believe it. I have had no luck in getting someone to assemble a really correct model of Cripes 3rd. Thanks again for your interest. Sam


Sam is a great guy who runs the Preddy Memorial Foundation and is THE expert on all of Maj Preddy's P-51's. He is not happy with BBI's repaint of "Cripes The 3rd" at all, in fact he is upset about it as you can maybe tell in his email to me.

My question is is whos to blame for this one? Sam worked with BBI and Bad Cat on this re-paint project but I cant blame Bad Cat for this because they dont do the paint jobs, BBI does. How could BBI drop the ball when they have an expert helping them out? I was shocked by Sam's response to the BBI Mustang "Cripes The 3rd" but him being angered is warrented because why waste your time helping a company when they cant get it right?.

I posted this for those who may be interested. When an expert is p***d off that says something in my book. I'm going to talk to Matt at Bad Cat tomorrow about this because I think he and Bad Cat should know about it instead of Matt coming on here and reading about it.

All I can say is BBI aint making many freinds these days are they?

I've heard of this guy and know he is very wise about all things 352nd. I've done some reading about Preddy and this guy's name pops-up as a corrective source numerous times. This is his life, this is what he does, this is the fiber of his sole, he is an expert on this one plane.

Many hobbyists have strong passions. Whether these folks study airplanes, the Titanic, Star Trek, Civil War, etc. one thing is certain, it is not possible for an outsider with lesser knowledge to please them. Never, ever. With the project based around a plastic, department store toy, satisfying an expert of this sort will never happen.

Fortunately for BC, the rest of the world has a much less critical eye. It looks very good to my wooden orb. But in the end, it is what it is; a plastic, snap together toy airplane, for sale at a toy store for about fifty Euros.

Well I'll be! That explains why HHH and CAM3 both have small markings! Amazing. Well, that really sucks....... It completely changes the look of the plane. Thanks for the info.

-Ski

For some reason I can live with the HHH markings because they dont catch my eye as a fault like Cripes does so I once again am switching my order back to HHH today. BBI got the "Killer" markings down good in fact right on the money save for the pilot name but missed the boat on the re-paints, unreal.


Speaking of HHH guys I found this out last night after some reasearch. The version of HHH that BC and BBI did was Maj Petersons 2nd Mustang and the name HHH was indeed painted in black NOT red as thought. That was applied to his third P-51D. Just thought I'd share that.

MightyMustang said: ""BBI got the "Killer" markings down good in fact right on the money save for the pilot name... ""


....and the fact that they made it GO*S instead of GQ*S as it should be...

Whoops Captain I forgot about that didnt I? But hey they at least got the scale of the codes correct and it was simple to correct.

It sucks when they have the expert working with them to make one of these and totally still fall short of what it really is suppose to be.

Would anyone have some good profiles on these two birds? Also do you think someone will make decals to correct the errors? I would pick some up if they do.

momaw nadon

momaw I dont think there will be a decal set to correct the problem on these Mustangs because all in all it aint that big of a deal really. Some collectors such as myself really wont mind the scale of the codes and so fourth being a little off. The only reason why I'm pissed about "Cripes" is because of the historical importance of this P-51 and it should have been done the way they were told to do it but they didnt. So BBI dropped the ball. Another feature of these two Fighters that "should" have been fixed was the fillet on the tail which shouldnt be there at all but I can understand why BBI left that feature on there and that was because it was a re-paint of their "Killer" version. The molds were not going to be changed because of an exclusive bottom line.

OK Guys, not sure if anybody mentioned this yet. I received an email from BadCats with a Fed Ex tracking number. Hopefully it will be here soon.

Man I just can't get that excited about all this. OnWu is right, I mean it is a TOY after all. I'm just glad Bbi is continuing on with the WW2 line. I'll buy every repaint they make, same as with 21st. Bravo Zulu to Bad Cat for getting us the exclusive repaints! The way I see it, we could still be relying on balsa kits to get planes in 1/18 scale so for me personally, I'm thrilled about them all, 100% accurate or not.

It wouldn't suprise me that BBI messed up on the markings. Heck, they even messed up Killer. That plane should have a white propeller nose and blue and white checker-pattern. This plane doesn't belong to the 78th FG!

Why do BBI (or any manufacturer) care anyhow? They know that people would buy these "toys" regardless of their mistakes. There no incentive for them to correct their mistakes.

GooglyDoogly wrote:It wouldn't suprise me that BBI messed up on the markings. Heck, they even messed up Killer. That plane should have a white propeller nose and blue and white checker-pattern. This plane doesn't belong to the 78th FG!

Why do BBI (or any manufacturer) care anyhow? They know that people would buy these "toys" regardless of their mistakes. There no incentive for them to correct their mistakes.

Actually it looks like it had a black nose:

http://community.webshots.com/photo/941 ... 1747ikCKpI

http://community.webshots.com/photo/941 ... 9954vyLbqk

Except for the "O" in place of the "Q", and the pilot's name, the markings look pretty good. Too bad HHH and Cripes both have lettering that is 1:24 scale!

-Ski

Teamski, I think that profile is wrong, judging from the unit that this aircraft was supposed to be in. Only the 78th FG has that black and white checkers, like Big Beautiful Doll, or Eileen.

Judging from the unit, 354th FG, 355th FS, the nose should be white or blue (now that I think about it, it's probably blue), and have blue and white checkers, but there's now way it's gonna have black and white checkers. Those are 78th's unit colors.