Hi all,
I scored the Academy-Minicraft PV-1 for NZ$20 from an auction site and got the Ventura Publications Ventura sheet to decorate it. I'll be doing NZ4512 "Slippery Sam", but with no weathering - as if it was a well-kept, airworthy "warbird" on the Kiwi airshow circuit.
The cockpit in the kit is very basic so I decided to spruce it up some, based on walkaround photos by a friend of the sole intact ex-RNZAF example. I added armrests to the pilot's seat, cut the back and sides from the right-hand seat, cut away part of the floor and removed the door from the bulkhead, and added a centre console/throttle quadrant from an EB-66. The control yokes in the box are not Ventura, so I scratched my own for the pilot. The rather poor instrument panel decal from the kit was used. After all this, the canopy is too thick to see much detail...but I know it's there!
Fit of the fuselage was good, although the top turret mount needed some trimming...wasted when it was accidentally glued in place! But the guns tilt, so that's fun. The only filler used was on the spurious starboard fuselage door - the panel lines are engraved and very fine, and my scribing skills are fairly poor, so I've avoided much more than that.
After two days work here's where I left Slippery Sam. Unlike many builds I've seen online, the wing-to-fuselage joins didn't cause me any trouble. Common consensus is that the cowls are the least accurate part of this kit, but given the scale and that I just build for my own satisfaction I decided not to replace them with aftermarket or modify them. The only change here was adding some scrap plastic to the "roof" of the oil coolers, which would otherwise be open.
Like most Venturas in Kiwi service, this one wore the four-tone US Navy scheme of Non-Specular Sea Blue upper fuselage, Semi-Gloss Sea Blue upper wings and tail, Intermediate Blue sides and Insignia White underneath. As I use Tamiya acrylics I have to use custom mixes for these colours (apart from White) but fortunately I found a good FS-Tamiya conversion site.
Thanks for checking in, expect to see this complete this time next week!
