This model was one of two aircraft sold in a fighting dueces kit back in 1970. My friend Keller Laros and I each had the kit, and after a fair bit of abuse to them Keller gave me the busted hull of his when he moved across the country at the end of 5th grade. Well, imagine what kind of job a couple of little kids did with model building! The bulk of this model was from Keller, and it had really thick dark olive drab paint gloobed all over it. It was missing the canopy & pilot, the horizontal stabilizers, the guns & pitot tube, and tail wheel. It had glue smears and huge gaps between the parts.

     I did a lot of work. I cleaned the surface of the skin, remounted the landing gear and made new guns & pitot. I got the wheel off a scap model tree, and borrowed the H stabs off my old kit. (Mine had met a fiery crash landing when I was about 12 years old, and there was little of it left.) I vacu formed the canopy over the old glue frosted original, and built the antenna wire & pulley mount. I'm actually pretty happy with the results.