1/72 B-52D with Big Belly Mod, Operation Arc Light

WOW Striker, that's some piece of work. I think you better stop now before you get carried away.

Russ - beautiful scratchbuilding! Nice figure, too! Keep 'em babies comin', and have a nice day!

Paweł

mississippivol

Wow! That's excellent

Thanks, Mississippi, and thanks for looking 

Son Of Medicine Man

Wow Russ!  That looks awesome!  Great scratch building there!  It just looks fantastic!     

Ken

Thanks, Ken! I appreciate the good words, bud.

Russ

Duke Maddog

Truly amazing work! I love it!

Thank you, Duke!

goldhammer

From one ECM tech to another, super, beautiful work.

Worked on "G"'s at Beale in 73 before going to Phantoms in Thailand. Love / hate relationship with them...Loved the bird,  hated those oil leaking, heavy, slick ALT's in the side bays. Especially when the bird was not fully loaded with fuel and the bays were 7 feet off the ground (not high enough for a stand, but too high to be really comfortable for 3 guys trying to load o box in the rack).  More than one tried to dig holes in the ramp.  Wish I had a couple of the maggie donut magnets though.

Thanks for the good words, Gold. Great to meet a fellow ECM tech. We only had C's, D's and F's at Clinton-Sherman back in 67-68. I hear you about those ALT's. You could get ALTritus handling those things . I think the transmitter alone weighed 150 lbs with coolant. Were the racks still located inside the 47 section on the G's? (we used to call them ovens - for good reason). Yeah, one of those magnetron magnets would be cool, but you'd have to keep anything metallic well away from them.

I worked on C-model Phantoms at Bergstrom AFB, Texas and D's through G's at Nellis AFB, Nevada.

Cheers, and thanks for stopping by.

Bish

WOW Striker, that's some piece of work. I think you better stop now before you get carried away.

Pawel

Russ - beautiful scratchbuilding! Nice figure, too! Keep 'em babies comin', and have a nice day!

Paweł

Thanks, Pawel!

IIRC there were 4 on each side by the front main gear, the same on each side by the rear mains and 3 or 4 inside, behind to bomb bays.  Was only there about 3 months.  Best part of being there was the 9th SRW was next door with the SR's.

Was a trip working on them out on the nuke alert pad..........AP crawling up your tail feathers to watch you like a hawk watching a mouse.

When I got to Udorn they asked if I was shop or flight line---said shop, had enough of the fl, they said we will give you a tour of the ramp areas, etc, since you will probably see some fl here too.  Parked in front of a revetment and said well, here's one of our birds.  Looked out the door of the bread van, looking right down the nose canon of an F4E.  Looked side to side slowly, looked back to the driver and then at the bird....Driver asked what was wrong, I said I thought B52's were bigger than that.  Yep, you're a shop troop.  Spent the next 9 months in the ALQ71 shop babysitting 60 of them til I got tired of it and went outside.

Came back to Shaw and still on the RF's to finish out.  Was going back to Mather but my re-enlist got canceled.  PO'ed the wrong guy.  Had a VRB of 6 then too.  E4, had career 7 and management 7 and a line number for staff that would have come up in about a year, and was red X qualified (they gave up the inboard pylons since they only carried the pods on the RF's and they pulled the charges out of the pylon bolts).

Great Work Russ;

The diorama makes the whole scene look real...

and love the oil stains on the tarmac,

Dom

Thanks for the good words, Dom

Russ

Many thanks to all of you for looking in and commenting. I wish you all a safe and happy Christmas

 and a fabulous New Year!    

goldhammer

IIRC there were 4 on each side by the front main gear, the same on each side by the rear mains and 3 or 4 inside, behind to bomb bays.  Was only there about 3 months.  Best part of being there was the 9th SRW was next door with the SR's.

Was a trip working on them out on the nuke alert pad..........AP crawling up your tail feathers to watch you like a hawk watching a mouse.

~

Gotcha. I found a structural drawing of the G model and could see the transmitter bays forward and aft of the main wheel wells. That had to be a lot easier than hoisting the buggers up through the 47 section hatch and duck walking them to the ovens. However, there were some advantages. We were inside out of the rain and in cold weather, we were out of the cold wind and blowing snow, but in hot weather, it was 120-130 degrees in the belly of the beast.

I remember working the alert pads too. No-lone zones and you best never be out of eyesight of your partner. The guards would relish any opportunity to catch you off guard and ride you out spread-eagled in the back of a pickup  . But you couldn't really blame them - walking guard out there was terribly uncomfortable and dull.

Thanks for the memories!

Russ

Russ;

I can see why that may be your last B-2 stand, but reallly, looks fab,

so how come you are not into building something like the USS Constitution with

full rigging?

I'm finally moving in to my new apartment on yes, December 25th....

Merry Christmas guys!

Thanks, Dom. Funny you should say that - I do have a model of the Constitution I started years ago but never have had the time, room or initiative to pick up on it. I did finish a fully rigged model of the Cutty Sark back in 1971, just before I left for Viet Nam. It's been in a glass case for 44 years.  Maybe I'll get the urge someday to complete the Constitution.

Cheers, Bud, and good luck on your move tomorrow.

Russ

Well, the diorama is almost completely finished now . I have my MMS utility truck, or at least a facsimile thereof. It's supposed to be the Ford 1.5 ton truck they used to carry their heavier loading tools and equipment and also to transport ammo for the tail turret. However, I could not find a suitable 1/72 truck that I could use for it. In desperation, I bought an M2 1957 COE (cab over engine) tractor trailer rig and modified the tractor. The M2 trucks are cast metal collector's items like the Matchbox series, only in 1/64 scale. I compared the M2 to my bomb truck tractor and the wheels are only about 1/2 mm larger.

I lengthened the frame to make a longer bed but the thing looked strange with the low sides and high cab. So, I went with a stake-bed truck, which I'm sure was used somewhere by MMS. Below are some pictures of the original M2 tractor, the finished truck and a comparison with my 1/72 bomb tractor.

Cheers,

Russ

Not bad, nice looking conversion.

Thanks for the revetment drawings.  Having to put that on hold for the 1/32 RF build though, just way to much space, even figuring 12 scale feet on the sides and 15 in the back.  Will use them for the 1/48 though.

Thanks, GH. As for the revetment drawings, you're most welcome. Please post some pictures or a link here when you get them built.

Well, I'm happy to say I finally finished all of my bomb clip transporters. I now have one fully loaded and three empty transporters. Below are a couple of pictures.

I've also extensively revised and updated my instructions for the empty bomb clip and the transporter.

Cheers,

Russ

I've decided to replace the model display engine nacelle with a modified nacelle bulkhead that will have two detailed engines mounted to it. I've ordered two resin engines and will detail them like I did the previous one.

The preliminary nacelle bulkhead is shown below.

The engines should look something like the photo below:

Cheers,

Russ

Wow, Russ,

More great builds!

Sometimes I forget you are building in 1/72!

I'll be back building soon myself,

just moving into my "forever home" .....

Hey, do those soldiers have haz-mat masks on?

Dom

Russ, seriously, this build never ceases to amaze me, brilliant work. can you remind me, what type of trailers are those again, the ones carrying the bomb clips.

Hi, Dom,

Thanks for the good words, bud! Yes, those are 60's version gas masks (or torture devices) - heavy, hot and the devil if you had to change the filters! You were supposed to be able to hold your breath, strip the mask off, change both filters and put the mask back on before you had to breathe again but it was no easy task. Occasionally, we had practice alerts where we had to put on the masks and continue doing our maintenance. The troops in the picture are apparently participating in an evaluation to see how well they can function using the masks. The (future) AMARC storage provided all the aircraft they needed for the trials.

 Great to know you are getting back into building again. Best of luck in getting moved into your new home!

Russ

Bish

Russ, seriously, this build never ceases to amaze me, brilliant work. can you remind me, what type of trailers are those again, the ones carrying the bomb clips.

Hi, Bish,

Thanks for the good words. Unfortunately, I've not been able to find the official "T" number for the trailer/transporter. They were specially designed for the Big Belly modification. When fully loaded with 500lb bombs, they weighted about 8 tons. I've not even found written reference to them in articles, only pictures. Very strange since they were so unique.

Cheers,

Russ

Thanks Russ. I was thinking it looked similar to the MHU-110, but with the extra wheel. Thanks again for all the great work you have shared. I hope to be able to start on my 52 early next year so need to go through all the great info you have sent and posted, its going to be a great help and will make my dio far better than it would have been 20 years ago.

My pleasure, Bish. I'll be looking forward to seeing your dio take shape.

It was a real struggle but I've finally gotten the resin engines to a point where I could mount them on the nacelle bulkhead. The engines came from the vendor in really rough condition and it took a lot of trimming, filling and sanding to get them even this far. The engines will look a lot better once they're painted. Now I can start adding detail to the bulkhead and the two engines.

Striker8241

It was a real struggle but I've finally gotten the resin engines to a point where I could mount them on the nacelle bulkhead. The engines come from the vendor in really rough condition and it took a lot of trimming, filling and sanding to get them even this far. The engines will look a lot better once they're painted. Now I can start adding detail to the bulkhead and the two engines.

 

 

Great work there once again Russ!  Your craftsmanship just keeps impressing me!     

Ken

Thanks, Ken!

Going to be following what you do with those engine. Where did they come from.