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| The Griffon engine powered Red Baron started life as a plain old P-51. After it’s dramatic modification into an airplane so different from the original, it was given the new designation of “RB-51” (RB for “Red Baron”). Mike’s 1/48 scale model similarly began life as a plain old Tamiya P-51 Mustang. |
Many different configurations for successful unlimited air racers have been tried, some were successful, some failed. The Griffon powered Red Baron was truly spectacular. It was so different from a stock Mustang that it was redesignated the RB-51.
There was something about those counter-rotating propellers that was just totally cool. Nicknamed “mix master” and “baloney slicer,” those prop blades really thrash. The sound of the Griffon engine was also different than that of a Merlin. In 1979, my girlfriend Dianne and I went down to Chino for their air show. We met up with a gentleman who was displaying his A-26K. We got to go behind the ropes and I got to look the RB-51 over. That’s when I got a photograph of Steve Hinton taxiing the Red Baron. It was also the only time I saw the Red Baron fly since it was destroyed that September at the Reno Air Races. Though badly hurt, Hinton would recover to race and win again. Dianne had a great time as she got a ride in the Invader to Majove. She wasn’t to impressed with the oil leaks and that some of the instruments were literally on the floor!
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| To create the nose section, Mike sliced the front off of an Academy Spitfire Mk. XIV. The front of the nose had to be increased to fit the wider High Planes spinner. Mike made two masters for the propeller blades and had multiples cast from resin by Roy Sutherland of Cooper Details. |
Two things happened that allowed me to do this project. First was the 1/72 scale Red Baron model by High Planes that were the source for the decals. Then, I was fortunate to find a fellow club member who bumped the decals up to 1/48 scale and printed them on his Alps printer. For reference material I used three different sets of drawings from Repla-Tech, Taichiro Yamashita and Racing Plane Data. Of course, I used some pictures as well from Air Classics, and a beautiful color shot taken from above in a Koko-Fan Special on air racing. The Raceplane Tech series, “Griffon-Powered Mustangs” was also put to great use. For first-hand information I turned to my friend Tony Corbo, whose aircraft refinishing shop painted many of the racers to come out of Chino in the 70’s and 80’s, including the Red Baron.
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| Mike created a mold and then vac-u-formed the Red Baron’s unique canopy. After the Tamiya cockpit detail was removed Mike used the True Details P-51 set as a replacement. The seat is by Ultra Cast. |
Tamiya was the donor kit for this build. Starting with the fuselage, I got rid of all the cockpit detail on the inside and glued the halves together. Using the kits panel lines as a guide, I cut out the cockpit section. I used basswood to carve patterns for a replacement piece as well as the canopy/turtledeck section which I vac-u-formed on my trusty Mattel machine. True Details supplied the cockpit, but I replaced the seat with an Ultra Cast part. After fitting the cockpit sides I glued the new top piece on, blending it with Super Glue. I then cut out the canopy so it could be put in the open position.
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| The Red Baron model under construction. Here you can see the Tamiya body, Academy nose and the reshaped Monogram tail. Note the plug that would later become the vac-u-formed canopy. |
For the nose, I cut the front off of an Academy Mk. XIV Spitfire - they gotta be good for something! I had to increase the size of the front where the spinner fits because I decided to use the spinner from the High Planes “World Jet” Mustang kit.
Living in the Bay Area you have access to a lot of cool modelers. One of these being Roy Sutherland of Cooper Details, who was nice enough to cast my prop blades from two masters I made. Now I can get prop sets reproduced for the other racers I am doing.
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| Mike scaled up the 1/72 High Planes decals to 1/48 and had them printed on an Alps printer. |
The next problem was the carb intake on top of the cowl. For this I cut the “smile” off of a Hasegawa Corsair and blended it in with sheet styrene and Super Glue. One of the most time-consuming things was rescribing the panel lines on the nose, but hey this is fun right?
On to the tail. I cut the vertical tail and rudder off and saved the rudder. I made up a new vertical tail from a Monogram Skyraider horizontal. This was pretty easy and it saved some time. Since the counter-rotating props cancelled out the torque on the RB-51, there was no offset on the vertical tail so this was glued on straight and blended into the turtledeck.
The wings weren’t very hard to modify. The tips were done using sheet styrene and ZAP super glue. They were shaped using a rat-tail file. The panel lines were filled with Squadron white putty. After the wing was mated to the fuselage the extended trailing edge fairings were done with, hold on, sheet styrene and ZAP super glue!
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| Steve Hinton in his revolutionary RB-51. This photo was taken by the author in 1979 at the Chino air show mere months before the Red Baron was destroyed at the Reno Air Races. Quite fortunately, Mr. Hinton survived the crash to race again. |
I used thin sheet to extend the vertical portion on the fuselage and thicker sheet for the horizontal part. The radius was done using Super Glue and a rat-tail file, and many hours!
To check for scratches and to see that the mods looked right, I brushed on several coats of Mr. Surfacer sanding them down with 320 dry paper. When I was satisfied with the airframe, it was primed with Tamiya rattle can primer. After wet sanding with 600 grit and a few touch-ups I painted the wings with Tamiya rattle can white and used Tamiya acrylic for the red. The exhaust area was sprayed with Alclad stainless steel and the model was clear coated with Model Master sealer.
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| The author with the remains of the real Red Baron on display at the Planes of Fame Museum in Chino, California. The racer was destroyed in a crash during the final lap of the 1979 Reno National Championship Air Races. |
For the exhaust stacks, I turned to Cooper Details and their absolutely sweet Spitfire Griffon pipes. (Oh man, it’s gettin’ late!)
Now the wheels were a different story. A lot of civilian Mustangs use wheels/brakes from the P-63 Kingcobra, so I ended up making these using wheel and tire parts from many different kits. These parts are now available from Obscureco.
The decaling was a learn-as-you-go type of deal. It’s a good thing I had multiple sheets because I screwed a few up. But in the end, they turned out OK.
The model represents the aircraft as it won the Homestead, Florida air race in March of ’79 before the beer sponsorship. It took me 2 to 3 years to finish. Of course, I worked on a few other models in that time span. The Red Baron was a beautiful aircraft and it’s too bad it’s not still around turning the pylons. It would be interesting to see how a refined RB-51 would stack up against the Stregas and Dago Reds with their hot Merlins.
More images of Mike’s Red Baron can be seen at http://svsm.org/gallery/meekrb51
Mike Meek has been building models since the mid 1960’s and joined SVSM in 1986. His main interests include 1/48 scale air racers and 1/24 & 1/25 scale race cars.
