Academy 1:72 B-17G Landing Gear Position

It's still possible. It would take some cutting of gear arms, and repositioning them. There are drawings of how it would look out there. You also would only worry about the elements that you can see.

I've seen it done where the wheel is cut in half and glued to the bottom of the nacelle, with a pin to hold it. You probably want to go better than that, but like Vol said, there's really not much to see. Tail wheel gets retracted too. IIRC that one has little doors?

The landing gear cavity is there, so I won't need to cut the wheel.  I'll just need to find some way to hold it in there at the appropriate height.  As mississippivol says, I should be able to make use of the kit's landing gear strut with a bit of modification.

Photos of B-17s in flight do not show a cover on either the tail wheel or the retracted struts of the main gear, so I don't have to worry about that, at least.

It's just strange that the kit bills itself as being buildable with gear up or down in spite of lacking the parts or the instructions to do so.  It has a multitude of spare parts to built alternate B-17 versions, but nothing extra for the gear.

 

No gear doors on the tailwheel of the B-17 - the wheel retracted thru a weird shaped hole into an internal sealed compartment.

Hmm I tried to reply last night but something went wrong with my post I guess.

Thanks for all the responses everyone.  Yes, the B-17 does not have covers on either the tail wheelwell or the portions of the main wheelwell that the strut comes through.  So no need to worry aboubt that at least.

I'll need to find some way to simply position the wheels halfway inside the wells at the appropriate depth, and position the struts in approximately the correct position as well.  

It's not really a question of "can I do it" (I can.  It won't be perfect, but I'm not a perfectionist) as "why does the kit's packaging say it has gear position options when it doesn't?".  The kit does have a ton of extra parts that could be used to build a wide variety of B-17s, but no extra bits for the landing gear.

There is a locator for the main gear leg pins inside the nacelle on the lower wing half which will allow wheel up or down position. For the wheel up option the struts forward of the gear should be cut just enough it touches the upper nacelle when the upper and lower wing halves are glued together and with the main wheel just half-way in the nacelle. The strut when glued to to the inside of the upper nacelle will help support the main gear in the up position. The main gear leg attachment pin is glued in the locator. Hope this helps

Okay, I see what you mean.  The man gear leg pin locator is a hinge, allowing the main gear leg to be installed in either position.  You can't attach the wheel to the main gear and rotate it from the down to up position without clipping the openng of the wheel well, but it does put the wheel in about the right position when positioned inside the wing.