Halberd 1/48 PA-48 Enforcer

Piper Aircraft’s PA-48 Enforcer was the third and final attempt in the early 1980’s by pilot and aero designer, David Lindsay of Cavalier Mustang fame, to entice the USAF in showing interest in his latest and final turbo prop COIN attack fighter proposal. Originally inspired by North American’s P-51D, the PA-48 was an entirely new design from its bones on up. Less than 10% its structure shared anything in common with the P-51 unlike the previous two Mustang derived Enforcer prototypes built ten years prior.

Realizing his Florida based Cavalier Aircraft Co lacked the capacity and capital to manufacture large quantities should the USAF issue a contract, Lindsay sold his Enforcer concept plans to Piper who hired Lindsay to facilitate design and production and oversee all Piper conducted Enforcer flight trials with him as test pilot.Piper and Lindsay secured Congressional funds to build 2 new PA-48 prototypes. Fight tests were undertaken at Elgin AFB, Florida and Edwards AFB, CA from 1983-1984. Although the PA-48 successfully exceeded expectations and proved more than capable, the USAF declined once again to place an order.

These two prototype PA-48 Enforcers survive today as fully restored static displays: N481PE, which this kit is based on, is at Tucson’s Pima Air & Space Museum and N482PE currently resides at the Edwards AFB Flight Test Museum.

Halberd is a limited run model company based in Kiev, Ukraine. It’s run by two enthusiastic modeler brothers who make outstanding high quality resin conversion sets for airplanes in 1/32 and 1/48 scales focusing mostly on a-typical subjects.

With missiles passing overhead and drone attacks that have hit neighboring Kiev buildings adjacent to their production facility, it’s amazing Halberd can keep production going. Actual resin mold production can only be done about 4 hrs a day when full electricity power is available. When it’s not, Halberd switches to design and business work using battery powered computer systems and lights. My hat’s off to them for persevering through these awful times.

This is my third 1/48 Halberd build and completes my collection of Lindsay’s Enforcers and their evolution. Issued in late 2024 this PA-48 kit exceeded my expectations the first time I laid eyes on Halberd’s precisely molded two piece resin fuselage that excels in jaw dropping structural detail.

There are 44 dark green resin parts, 1 clear light lens and 1 amber position light plus a fret of 14 PE pieces and a decal sheet. The only thing that I found Halberd missed are the metal braces that secure the rear fins to the wing tanks but one could fabricate them easily as I did. It also would have been nice to have some instrument decals for the wonderfully molded cockpit panel.

As always with Halberd conversions, a donor kit is required. The 1/48 version is designed for Eduard P-51D series (I used a box of P51F-6K over trees).

Everything fits together like a glove and is well thought out. There are fuselage locater pins which is rare for a limited resin kit like this one . Halberd provides six color copy pages of generalized instructions and the one paint scheme specific to N481P. I found it useful to use both Halberd and Eduard instructions side by side during assembly but be sure to study them first before starting the build.

Use only CA glue and use it sparingly for the obvious reasons. I like Surehold Plastic Surgery CA. Having built two other Halberd kits, I knew what to expect here. Very little filler is needed but unfortunately one has to sacrifice a bit of the fuselage’s exquisite rivet detail to make a couple of not needed seams go away. The only real build hurdle comes when it’s time to merge Halberd’s green resin fuselage bottom to middle of Eduard’s grey styrene bottom wing. This requires a bit of surgery, a lot of patience, filler and a fair amount of seriously delicate sanding. It takes a while to dial in a smooth joint and I needed several go arounds before I was satisfied. Some detail will be lost no matter how careful one is. Masking off the surrounding areas prior to sanding sure saved me a lot of grief.

I made my own additional hurdle trying to figure out how to put the main wing flaps in the “up” position but Eduard’s kit is not designed to do that. Once again I had to get the surgical tools out along with a lot of pre-planning on how to go about it until I finally got a successful flaps up Enforcer.

One thing Halberd doesn’t point out is that one must remove the antenna cable attachment “bump” on top of the Eduard clear canopy (part A15) and polish smooth accordingly. Enforcers did not use cable antennas. PA-48’s had two landing lights in the wells, each side so I raided my parts box for an extra one.

I left off all the fiddly top and bottom resin bits, lights and PE parts like tank fins and tail airfoil pieces etc until about 90% of the model was finished. I pre-painted them all before attaching. Keep in mind the vicious carpet monster loves to gobble these parts up. I cut off the long resin spear-like antenna (part 38) from its port side wing tank mount and glued it back in place at the absolute last minute of the build. Guaranteed to snap off once or twice otherwise. (Ask me how I know!) I installed the finished prop assembly snug to the resin cowling housing without glue so I could rotate it to my visual liking. As a final touch I added the fin braces using strips cut from cut from the foil wine bottle foil. I used white glue to make a lens for the front light on the starboard tank.

Halberd’s resin is close to gunship green so I was concerned it might darken up the next round of lighter camo paint on top of it and so I primed the entire plane using a Tamiya TS light grey lacquer rattle can. All the color paints used from here on out are Tamiya flat XF acrylics thinned 50/50 with Mr. Color leveling thinner. I mixed the colors according to the FS callouts per the instructions beginning with an airbrushed base coat of Medium Forest Green (FS 34102) and airbrushed the 2 darker colors over it (gunship green FS 34092 and grey FS36081). Low tack putty worms were used for the camouflage demarcations. I experienced no paint pull up whatsoever. After waiting a couple of days for the paint to thoroughly cure, I sealed the entire plane with gloss clear lacquer using another Tamiya TS rattle can in preparation for the decals.

Halberd’s decals performed perfectly. To my eyes, they look like they are painted on. Another nice touch is that extra decals are provided on the sheet in case of operator error.

A final spray of Alclad II Klear Kote Matte sealed everything in place. Very little weathering was done as PA-48 Enforcers were maintained in clean condition until put out to pasture prior to restoration. At the last minute I attached all the set aside carpet monster-friendly fiddly bits. That long antenna spear was reattached prior to photographs.

I can’t praise Halberd’s PA-48 Enforcer conversion set high enough. To me, it’s state of the art. Many thanks to Andrey for sending me some extra parts that went missing after the carpet monster got hold of them. He also told me a few months ago:

“This kit was made a few years apart from the first Enforcer kit (model 1971) and I hope you can see the difference in the higher quality of the details. I still admire the wheels and instrument panel every time I take the part out of the mold.”

No kidding! I certainly can.

Highly recommended for experienced modelers.

Available only from https://www.halberdmodel.co/

Eric Berg

19 January 2026

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