This is Tamiya's FW-190D kit that I built specifically for the Terry Sumner Challenge at last year's BayCon in South Attleboro, Mass. For many years now one member has issued a challenge to other builders to build a certain aircraft better than his own. The winner receives a trophy and is judged independently by modelers obviously not in the running. For a bunch of years, member Frank Knight had it and then he passed it on to Bob Don. Two years ago it got passed on to me and this is the subject of the first of my challenges. It had to be any variant of an inline engined FW 190 in 1/48 scale. Did I win my own challenge? Nope...got beat by a few much better FW 190D's than this one! Competition was FIERCE!!!!

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I used a resin engine bay set from Verlinden. I made all the engine bay doors by vacuforming them on my old Mattel Vac-U-Form and added internal ribbing. I opened up the fuselage radio compartment and added in control wires etc. Also opened the tail wheel well and installed the Verlinden parts. All the control surfaces were cut off and modified, then repositioned. And yes, the control stick is in the proper position for the placement of the control surfaces!

The markings are from Aeromaster and the paint is White Ensign Models Colourcoats. This kit went together very well as has been previously reported by other builders. Even with all the cutting I did, it still was fairly easy. This year's Challenge is the 1/48 B-25! It should make for an impressive display on the table! I know I'll get beat again as I've already seen a couple of the other entries and my B-25 doesn't stand a chance. But no matter, the fun is in the building!

Terry Sumner

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