Hasegawa 1/72 B-47E Strato Jet SAC Nuclear Bomber

Wow!great looking aircraft!Reminds me of the old James Sterwart movie "Strategic Air Command".

What a great movie indeed, I had to see that one more than once in the 1950s. A few years ago I accidentally caught it on HD TV. WOW, Great again!

Max

PS--We did discuss the movie on my B-36 post a few days back in case you missed it. Quite the influence at the time for us small kids! 

Magnificant!!!  Beautiful paint job!!  The white undersurface shows off the bomb bay and wheel wells wonderfully!  I love the paint/decal details on the engines.  I have this very kit in my stash, along with B-52D, G and H, all in 1/72.  I started the G model, but living in a small apartment, I just don't have the space to finish it.  Sure am looking forward to building that B-47 though.  Do you recall any fit issues or other problems with the kit?

Very nice, clean build.

I like the smooth perfect, metal finish, which is always a headache.

Nice story, I would love to live near an AFB or airport..at least. Too old in life I found I should made my career in some type of ground operations at an airport.

Thanks for sharing.

Hey Valkyrie. The kit is somewhat oldstyle in being somewhat basic. As I remember it went together smoothly. It comes with a rack of conventional bombs which I don't believe it ever carried. I once talked to an old B-47 weapons loader and he told me that in the two nuke configuration the bombs looked like large beer kegs and were carried end to end rather than side by side as I have them. I little work on Google and you can probably find the bombs dimensions and scratch build them as I did on my B-36. The only other changes I made was to paint the pilots helmet with a red stripe around it like my motorcycle helmet so they could see who's driving. LOL

Max

And Garzonh, as I remember the paint was Testors spray can Silver and White followed with a coat of clear. Pretty simple and it usually looks good.

Nice job, Max!  Good to know it went together well, as I have that same kit in my stash.  My Dad used to fly them at one point in his Air Force career.  Thanks for sharing.

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

Thanks Gene, Your dad and my uncle probably crossed paths in their B-47 careers. My uncle had quite the influence on me as a kid about aviation. I couldn't wait for him to come and visit and tell more. I couldn't get enough!  His name was Col. George Wells and later flew SAC B-52s and Commanded one of two SAC F-111 squadrons. He was good for many flying stories even the first C-47 pilot to pick up the Bataan death march surviors in WW2. He took me on my first airplane ride in a Piper Cub. It's no wonder I became a Airplane nut!

Max

Good looking B-47.  I need to build one in 1/72 scale.

Thanks John, I did check out your collection at your site. Some of everything! Nice.

 Max

Thank you for sharing with us such a great story from your uncle.  Your build is just fantastic.  This is truly a fitting tribute, keep up the great work!  Can't wait to see more.

Toshi

Love the B-47!  I have an old balsa wood solid model of it in my stash.

When I was in a Minuteman training squadron in AF, we had a Major in the squadron who was the navigator on the famous (unauthorized) flight of a -47 under the Mackinaw straits bridge. 

Hodakamax

Thanks Gene, Your dad and my uncle probably crossed paths in their B-47 careers. My uncle had quite the influence on me as a kid about aviation. I couldn't wait for him to come and visit and tell more. I couldn't get enough!  His name was Col. George Wells and later flew SAC B-52s and Commanded one of two SAC F-111 squadrons. He was good for many flying stories even the first C-47 pilot to pick up the Bataan death march surviors in WW2. He took me on my first airplane ride in a Piper Cub. It's no wonder I became a Airplane nut!

Max

 

Max,

It sounds like your Uncle may have been a little earlier than my Dad, but who knows?  He was in college during WWII, but was in the AF in time for Korea and Viet Nam.  Between those two trips, he did time at Vandenberg and Wright-Patt., where he flew the '47, and maybe the '52.  I don't know that for sure, but he was in SAC at Vandenberg, and they had B-52s on the ramp.  I used to get to visit the flightline with him often, and have fond memories of climbing through just about everything there.  That was in the early-to-mid '60's, doing a year in 'Nam in '68-'69. 

I'm slowly putting a stash together that has at least one variant of what I know he flew during his career.  I have just about everything except a T-39!! 

Regards,

Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas

Hey Gene, Thanks for the info. Like you I'm trying to build the stuff my uncle flew. I've got the B-47, B-52 done andI'm trying to find the SAC version of the F-111. It had longer wings than the standard ones and only carried nukes. I saw a real one at the Barksdale AFB museum in Shreveport LA. I took several pictures for reference. Someday I hope.

Max

Max, memory serving, the Minicraft F-111 series had an FB-111 included.  You would have to do some looking, but you might be able to track one down. 

John

Thanks John, I couldn't even remember if it was a FB-111 or a F-111B. I'm behind in modeling but thanks again for the info. I'll check it out.

Max

Wow! Looks good, Max! I would have loved to have seen a real one up close. 

A little update on the weapons load that I need to change. The B-47 could carry 2-Mk 15 Nuclear weapons one behind the other. The dimesions were 35'' in diameter and 140'' in length. The bomb weighed 7,600 pounds and had a yield of 3.8 MT. Maybe my next project will to build 2 nukes (Sounds scary!) and replace the old ones for authenticity. 

Max

Hmm, a bit more research reveals tha the B-47 could also carry one whopper B41 nuclear weapon with a yield (I like that term) of 25MT. Looks like that will be the way to go. Only one bomb to build with a much larger bang for the buck. Finding all this out scares the heck outta Max. A little scale figuring and I'll be back into the manufacture of Nuclear weapons.

Max

While digging through my Barksdale AFB museum pictures I found this real B-47 complete with nuke. The nuke is on my scratch build list and will update my 1/72 B-47.

Max

Well, I finally got around to changing out the weapons load from my incorrect guess at the time. I selected the 25 megaton B-41 Nuclear weapon and scratch built it from spare nuclear weapon parts from around the house namely my wife's lip stick tube, Bondo, wood, tape and such. My scale was almost perfect but the bomb bay was a little short. A slight shortning of the bomb and all is well. Much more authentic now!

Max

Max, that just fits, doesn't it.  More bang for the buck.  Very cool sir, and I might have to duplicate your efforts when I build my B-47. 

Thanks for sharing.

John

Ah, thanks John! As I look at it I think my fins are slightly tall but at least it's quite a bit more accurate than my original guess. That was fun figuring that all out. I'm blaming Hasegawa for that Bomb bay for being slightly short! LOL!

Max

Max, its 1/72 scale.  An 1/8th inch error is 9 inches on the real thing.  I'll bet they barely shoehorned that thing in there on the real plane, so it makes perfect sense you would have to try more than once.  Looks great regardless.  Small plane with a big stick. 

John

Hey John, I noticed some B41 bomb pictures have the nose end flattend about that much. Maybe on loading the first B-47 someone said "Oops". LOL!

Max

PS--Here's a pre-build picture from the Scratch Build thread showing the dimensions.

Hello Max!

Nice scratchbuilding! Somehow it's always pretty hard to find a plastic tube of a specific diameter if it's to be larger than a few mm. That's why you need creativity and lots of obscure stuff laying around when scratchbuilding!

Thanks for sharing and have a nice day

Paweł

Hodakamax

Hmm, a bit more research reveals tha the B-47 could also carry one whopper B41 nuclear weapon with a yield (I like that term) of 25MT. Looks like that will be the way to go. Only one bomb to build with a much larger bang for the buck. Finding all this out scares the heck outta Max. 

 

 

Man that's outstanding work.  Cool info and reference picks.  Scares me too.  I like the third person, you sound like royalty bud.  

OK, one more. It would be a shame to waste this Dayton picture after all of this research and discussion! LOL! And I always conclude with "What were they thinking?"

Max

Hey Pawel, Joe and Rudy, Thanks for the comments! Encouragement always helps on my silly projects! LOL! And Rudy, keep us posted on the 1/48 B-29 w/fission bomb. That model always has worried me but I'm still trying to find a place for my 1/48 B-17. Maybe I need an addition to the museum space wise. Carry on!

Max