You certainly could start with Shep Paine's classic book. He covers quite a few of the questions you pose.

Also look long and hard at photos of the real thing. Discard any preconceptions about what a shot up plane looks like. One 20mm cannon shell can punch a hole the size of a grapefruit in, bounce around inside and remove several square feet of metal skin on the way out.

As far as scale, I always go smaller. Especially in a situation with multiple subjects. A "happening" battle scene is hard, because if the fighter is engaging the bomber at several hundred yards, even at 1/72 that's about three yards apart. Selective compression is ok, but even that has it's limits.

One sure fire way to address this is to model in several scales. For instance have a 1/144 B-17 in the close background and a 1/72 Bf- in the foreground.

One other thing. As you sound willing to invest some time in this, build a scale model of your diorama, say 1/4 size. Simple cut outs of the a/c maybe from reduced plans photocopied and cut out ala flats notched together. Play with the position and spacing against a background and take lots of pictures.

That's a very nice idea for a model btw.

Ok. what is Shep Paine's classic book?  :(

Hey I just finished reading this book and was thinking along the same lines!   This is a really good read and definitely hard to put down!  I hadn't read anything like this before - especially the war from the view point of a Luftwaffe pilot.  

BlackSheepTwoOneFour

Ok. what is Shep Paine's classic book?  :(

Yeah, it's bit around a while and there are newer quicker ways on a few things there but I've used my copy to the point it's falling apart. Probably the most useful modeling related book I've ever bought!

Personally I'd go with 1/72nd, 1/48th is going to be so big it will be a bit unwieldy unless you have a big area to set it up and just never transport it. The new Revell Germany B-17 is a nicely detailed interior too, probably as good or maybe better than the excellent classic 1/48th Monogram kit.

GM has some excellent advice there on mixing scales too, you could do a shadow box using a 1/48th Bf-109 to look closer to the viewer with a 1/72nd B-17 to look farther away, or have a 1/72nd B-17 chased by a 1/144 Bf-109.

Please post it here if you go ahead, I'd love to see how this comes out. I'd tinkered years ago with the idea of doing a Nakajima Raiden ramming a B-29 but doubted there'd be anyway to do it in a reasonable size, a 1/72nd B-29 has a wingspan of two feet/ 2/3 of a meter, and 1/144 would be just so small the Raiden would be tiny.  

Gamera - those ides are something to consider. My original thought would to do both in 1/48th scale but after pondering it would be a bit too large especially with the B-17 wingspan being a little over 2 feet while the 1/72nd scale wingspan is 17.3".

Another diorama idea I could do is "The Return of the Pub" where it disicts the lumbering battered Ye Olde Pub bomber being escorted home by a pair of P-47 Thunderbolts. I came across a B&W artist drawing of that. I just need to find out the markings of those T-bolts. The 1/72nd scale B-17 Fortress, a 1/44th in the far background side and the 1/48th in the foreground.  Heck, I might even do both. LOL!!! *Have to stop and slow down before I get myself overwhelmed. :))

'The Return of the Pub' sounds like a cool idea! Only problem seems to me that you'd almost want to put the whole thing in a shadow box to make sure the viewer is only going to look it in the direction you designed it for, and it's going to be huge if you do! Maybe if you take it to a show etc you could put it on a table etc so people can only see it from one direction?

Trouble is, I can't seem to find a 1/144th scale P-47 Thunderbolt Razorback kit. Nor I know if one even existed.

Hmmm, sorry wasn't aware no one did one in that scale. Not sure what else to tell you, I hope you keep working on this, it's a really cool idea!

I ordered my Bf109 a while back and picked up on Father's Day weekend. Tonight I worked on it a little bit of what I can until my WWII German Luftwaffe Acrylic paint set comes in. So far I've done:

Dry fitted all the pieces (fuselage and wings) and painted the cockpit. I need to do a wash in the cockpit, dry brush the intrument panels, and cockpit details.

This is the Bf109 kit I got:

hasegawausa.com/.../hsgs9147.html

It's going to a challenge building it wheels up in flight mode since it doesn't give me that option in the directions. I may have to grind out / wittle down the nub where the struts go in the wheel wells. Not sure what would be the best way to do it except perhaps cut down the struts and attach it to wheel doors unpainted. Only the wheel will be painted.

The decals for Franz's plane are not available at this time but I did put in a notification when it's available again.

I am a bit disappointed that the kit didn't come with a pilot. If anyone has a spare German pilot I can use for this kit, I'd love to have it. The decal sheet that came with the kit is available if anyone wants it for trade. I'll post pics of my progress when I get a chance.

Last night I managed to dig up a scrap jet aircraft model I can use to practice my airbrushing skills. Now I'm getting excited for my ac adapter to come in so I can start praticing it. I may start out using india ink or pick up a sample water base acrylic paint to start off with.

Looks like I've got a dilemma. While I was dryfitting the parts, I decided to see how the wheel well covers stack up with wheels up. Guess what? Dang things don't completely cover it - meaning where the narrow portion of the wheel well doesn't completely cover it. Looks like I've got 2 things to do: one being use the open spot to place the clear rods to hold up the model for my planned diorama or two - find aftermarket wheel well covers.

That Hasegawa kit should be good quality, it's a pretty new release I think. Not sure what to do about the wheel wells, you might use the kit ones as a pattern to cut slightly larger ones out of plastic sheet.