B-17F Commission

The Monogram kit is the better of the two. Both date from the mid 1970s. The Revell Germany kit is a rebox of the Revell F. Be prepared for a lot of good old fashioned model building. The detail on the Revell kit is more spartan and softer than on the Monogram G. But they are the only game in town in 1/48. I have built a couple of the Gs and have the F in my stash for one day... To convert the Monogram G, an early model G, to the Belle, an early model F, is a moderately serious undertaking in the nose area. Good luck.

Edit- I don't know why I thought you were gonna build it as Memphis Belle. I misread that part. What version is Beats Me? That is one I am not familiar with.

The ship in question was a F model Fortress (serial number 41-24567, bearing the code PU-J), which was assigned to the 360th Bomb Squadron of the 303rd Bomb Group ("Hell's Angels). The Revell kits are the only F models on the market, but you may want to double check the nose windows against your references because there was a lot of variation in the layout and nose armament of these earlier models. I know that I have a book with a lot of photos of this particular squadron's ships, including Beats Me, but it's locked up in storage right now. I'll see if I can find it, but it might be a bit of a wait until I can find time away from writing essays and research papers for college. Best wishes on this build!

Ok I found the ship's history and a few photos of it over on a site about the 303rd BG. The Revell F would be the simplest candidate for the kit, as it has the same nose windown configuration (no astrodome, flat nose windows) of the early Fs. Nose art is simple enough and would not be too hard to come up with on a printer.

Like I said before, the Revell F kit is old: raised panel lines, spartan interior, and detail is on the soft side on things like engines, etc. But it is a good basic early F, and would be the perfect base for this subject, especially for the person who want onw and is not concerned about resin, PE, etc. One think that I have read about the Revell F, is that the engineering is so similar to the Monogram G, than some parts from the Monogram kit will fit on it and Monogram took Revell to court over it for copyright infringement back when those two were serious rivals instead of the corporate siblings they are now.

So Revell Belle kit would be suitable? I looked at images of the nose and see one flat section and then some framework. Is that the accurate version for the Beats Me!? The AstroDome version has much less framework?? I'll have to live with raised panel lines. If done right they can mimic recessed pretty well. Thx for the tips!!

Yes, the Revell F is from roughly the same production block. Later F's had a protruding window on each side and a bubble astrodome. Some early Fs had the protruding windows retrofitted, but as "Beats Me" was shot down fairly early on I doubt that she had these windows retrofitted. It was too early in the air campaign. As far as panel lines go, B-17s had overlapping skin panels (not butt joined) that did not have flush riveting, so raised panel lines are not an issue.