Small Scale Military Headquarters

I am in the market for a new P51 and have my eye on the Old Crow. What is the consensus on this version of the aircraft. Opinions on other P51 are welcome. There are soo many out it is hard to pick which one to buy. Since the P51 is not really my favorite aircraft I only want to get one plane.

I have several of these pesky mustangs including the old 1/18 loius.

I personally think that BBi Old Crow is one of the nicest mustangs on the market. Detailing, paint and so on.

If you're displaying in the air the finer details dont matter as much and it pretty much comes down to paint schemes.

Ridge runner is quite striking and the undertaker nice to look at also.

Good luck, any mustangs a good mustang!

PM sent.

the only trouble with Old Crow is that it is a less 'typical' looking Mustang, since the vast majority of them were overall natural aluminum finish and not camouflaged, like Old Crow is.

Old Crow is really nice and I would've picked one up if it had the "Old Crow" on the other side of the cowl like it should've had..

Roger that, I got mine only to realize afterwards that Old Crow was only one on side..

>>> I like the camo'd Mustangs but since this particular version is'nt detailed after the authentic aircraft ,... I'd pass on it myself. That's just my opinion.

I think we have a winner:
http://www.badcataviation.com/phhoho1bb21b.html

I agree!
HHH is my personal favorite

http://img207.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tmp1779rf1.jpg

Ah great subject and right up my alley. As far as Old Crow is concerned its a great lookin plane with the only draw back of not having Old Crow on the other side of the cowling. BBI's P-51's are highly detailed through out and the paint schemes are very good. As for 21st's re-tooled Mustangs? Very well done and their first 2 versions Petie The 2nd and Ridge Runner are very colorful.

But my favorite? Hurry Home Honey! For now that is. Both 21st and BBI make great Mustangs and you cant go wrong with either of them. So its up to you lsc1002. Your money and your choice.

The paint work on the BBI OLD CROW is really well done. Great looking model.

Like the old crow, but think the killer from BBI is the best mustang to display. I find it better at eye level on a shelf to appreciate the detail.

I can't figure out why BBI chose to do the Old Crow version with the olive green. When I think of the Old Crow I think of the Natural metal finish with only the nose mask in the green. I love the fighter group that wore the yellow and red checker noses though! Anyone notice that the Tender Terror Victory plane has the yellow and red checkers, same as the Old Crow? Anyone Mustang historian out there know if they are from the same outfit?

tko211,

Yep they are from the same group. The 357th! My all time favorite fighter group in the ETO.

tko211 wrote:I can't figure out why BBI chose to do the Old Crow version with the olive green. When I think of the Old Crow I think of the Natural metal finish with only the nose mask in the green. I love the fighter group that wore the yellow and red checker noses though! Anyone notice that the Tender Terror Victory plane has the yellow and red checkers, same as the Old Crow? Anyone Mustang historian out there know if they are from the same outfit?

Hey tko I forgot to throw this in when I responded to your post. From what I know I think the reason for BBI going with the olive drab/grey paint scheme on their Old Crow realease was that that color scheme was Col Bud Anderson's favorite on his Mustang. His P-51D was pretty much olive drab right up until only a few months before the war ended. Most if not all the 357th's P-51's were in the olive drab/neutral grey scheme which they preferred. Anderson wasnt happy to find that when he got ready for another mission to find they removed the paint scheme he so favored. I got this info from his son who runs the Bud Anderson Old Crow Web Site.

I have to agree completely with hworth18 and grunt1....the "Old Crow" on one side of the fuselage, only, did me in....had even clutched an MIB box and almost purchased it, BUT--one side, no thanks.

Too bad that LouIV is not reworked into a fine offering, as they are turning out now vs. 2-3 years ago. Just a "minor" detail for me, having Invasion Stripes is really a bonus; which excludes the PTO/CBI, etc.

HHH is a beauty, but so is the Cripes A' Mighty....remember beauty is in the eye of the beholder; it sounds like most of us are "beholders", too

dV

Hey dV!,

Really like the avatar. Your computer skills are now officially far ahead of mine! I have yet to figure out how to do that

Wings_&_Armor wrote:Hey dV!,

Really like the avatar. Your computer skills are now officially far ahead of mine! I have yet to figure out how to do that

Thanks!!! I give credit to Rowsdower for the "where to go" (fortunately his place was not firey-hot!!), which is ImageShack:

http://www.imageshack.us/

I wanted to post pix within my posts, on occasion, and I sorely lacked in the avatar department, too. Many of the guys here on the Forum have suggested ImageShack, but I finally did it. Man, first I get up and running on Webshots, and now an avatar via ImageShack. Who said you cannot teach a (getting)older dog new tricks?!

I appreciate your positive comments VERY much,

dV

Glad to see you got that working DV! Sometimes my explanations get people even more confused!

I just picked up the HHH Mustang after reading this thread. I couldn't pass it up for $35 at Badcat. I believe I now have all of the BBI Mustang paint schemes. There's no way I could limit myself to just one, they are all way too good looking!

pokeyjtc wrote:I just picked up the HHH Mustang after reading this thread. I couldn't pass it up for $35 at Badcat. I believe I now have all of the BBI Mustang paint schemes. There's no way I could limit myself to just one, they are all way too good looking!

Congrats! I think HHH is the best of the bunch so far.

Guys, you have to put yourselves in a different world to comprehend what aircraft looked like at various times.

In the first place, consider that you're dealing with a battle plan. The order matched pilots with available aircraft. Worrying about what plane you were supposed to fly into battle wasn't the concern if a force had to be mounted to fit the unit's assignment.

The fact of the matter is, if an airworthy aircraft was available versus not making the call, the pilots took to the air in what met the orders.

Keep that kind of mind-set in your head when you consider what had to be done to fill the orders of the day. You put it into the air if you can justify it. Just because it wasn't painted per the regs didn't mean the pilot couldn't take it into battle.

Camo and markings didn't proliferate like we think in terms of immediacy. They weren't looking at a web site and seeing what the orders called for. Things trickled down. Sometimes the crews in the field didn't wait, especially when personalities or upper-rank officers had their own way of doing things.

In-the-field modifications weren't rare. Some of them worked well under the circumstances. Nobody was challenging the 56th fighter group's results just because they did their own thing with markings and camo.

Without instant communication, field units did what the boss said based on what they had at hand.

In today's rather distorted lens of experiences, we tend to think there should be some singular provable rationale for why we see what we see.

Trust me, from first-hand discussions with the pilots involved, you can get at least one version of a story about why a plane looked the way it did. And don't discount the fact that the guys painting them were trying to keep the pilots happy.

That's why I'm less concerned about little tiny variations; some of them can be explained by having only one or two photographs to go on.

Bud Anderson's P-51 is a good example, but consider Eagleston's versions and Gentile's various Shangrila mounts.

And as I've pointed out before in the 21st Century Flying Tiger's markings, photographic evidence shows up in so many sources that unless you have access to all of them, you might have to take what you have under some marketing deadline and run with it and live with the results. 99.999% of the buyers won't have access to the minutiae.

If you do want Old Crow, this is the best deal around I believe:
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/prod ... ode=retail

digger wrote:If you do want Old Crow, this is the best deal around I believe:
http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/bbts/prod ... ode=retail

Big Bad Toy store always gives their customers good deals. I should know because I buy almost all my Transfomer figures from them and they are the cheapest in town. HOWEVER my local Toys R Us has the Old Crow P-51 for 35 bucks so I might pick one up this weekend.