P-40 HS-B Desert Crash

During WW2 a P-40 crashed in the Egyptian desert only to be found 70 years later in 2012 by a polish oil worker. Human remains, presumed to be the P-40 pilot Dennis Copping were later found a few miles away as he likely decided to walk out not knowing the nearest settlement was 200 miles away . I decided to create a diorama of the aircraft as it was such a poignant aircraft recovery story and similar to the B-24 Lady Be Good find in the 1950's and testament to the lonely sadness of war and the very young pilots who died.

My version

The challenge for this model was the extensive clean sandblasted weathering of the aluminum aircraft skin. The sand had taken the paint off in patches and in some cases revealed the aluminum green undercoat and faded RAF roundels. The crash had ripped off the entire propeller and spinner as well as crushing the radiator entirely, exposing the engine.

I used a standard 1/72 scale Airfix Curtis Hawk 81-A-2 (kit number A01003) which is obviously the wrong type as the real P-40B. I cut off the bottom of the entire radiator up to the wing root and scratch built an engine complete with pistons, struts and dangling pipes and then used tin foil for the damaged aircraft skin ripped up during the landing as well as the open radio compartment. I built up the upper air intake with putty and sanded away the 2 cowling guns that the 81-A-2 had and flattened the shape for the P-40B intake.

P-40 nose showing tin foil as crumpled and ripped radiator cowling. Scratches of dried grey paint were used as debris under the engine block.

Initially I painted everything in Testors aluminum enamel (by brush!) and then added several layers of aluminum green, then tan and brown, each time, sanding it back down to the initial silver layer with an 800 grit paper. The canopy was painted and then sprayed inside with paint to mimic sand fogging. Using a tiny drill, I hollowed out each of the exhaust pipes and used a metallic bronze enamel to add rust and heat discolouring.



P-40 diorama showing rudder and elevator ribs painstakingly cut and filed out (they still need to be thinner!)

The longest task by far was to cut out, thin and sand the rudder, aerilons and elevators which were fabric covered on the real P-40 and had been sand blasted away in the crashed aircraft. The real challenge was to get the spars thin enough for realism but I think they are still too thick (there probably an etched set available for a high price, but I wanted to scratch build the entire set). The prop (from Quickboost) was the only after market resin part (having somehow lost the original spinner and prop during the build (3 months).





 The base of the diorama was on plywood with a coat of plaster paris for the rock base (smoothed out using a popsicle stick for wind blasted rocks) and painted a flat pink/grey. I used Tamiya weathering pastels (tan and mixed with white plaster paris powder) for the sand which is actually much more yellow in the real shots. Overall as satisfying build and could have weathered it for months to come had I not finally decided enough was enough.