Mighty 8th GB 1-Nov-2010 - 31-Oct-2011

 Finally, after almost 5 months, i can call this done. Delayed due to, amongst other things, a broken wrist, leave and dodgy decals, i finally have a B-17 to add to my collection of completed kits. I owe a big thanks to more than a few members of this forum for the help they have given me, and without them, this would now be sat in a box, half built, slowly being forgotten about.

A quick round up. This is the 72nd Academy B-17F. I added an eduard Big Ed PE set and painted with xtracolour enamels. The decals, these ones correct, are from Super scale and i use pro modeller wash for the panel lines and weathering. There are still a couple of things to be done, but these will be at a later date. One of these is exhaust staining as i can't see from photos where this built up. Also, the props should have yellow stencilling at the base of each blade, but the kit didn't have these, and i can't find any AM decals with these on at the moment. So once i find some, i will then flat coat the blades and secure the props.

I added the field fitted forward gun position but cutting a hole in the clear nose piece and added framing with lead foil, then use the foil to make the gun mount. The support framing is styrene rod. But i am not 100% happy with the result, the clear plastic is to thick for starters. And the framing is a little to big. So i plan to replace this at a later date with a thinner vac form nose, this should be easier to modify using the lessons from this one.

I plan on a dio showing the aircraft about to be loaded with bombs. And so the bomb bay has been left open. The bomb bay its all eduard PE.

Off the top of my head, and without going through all the posts on this thread and others i would like to thank Stikpusher, B17pilot, B17, checkmateking and littleJ for all their help. And if i have forgotten anyone, my apologies. and thanks to everyone else for the kinds words, advice and encouragement during this build.

And now, for a touch of history.

This kit is the second in a personal project of mine, to build 72^nd aircraft from all of the 37 military airfields in the County of Norfolk. This is was more airfields than any other county in the UK.

The aircraft depicted here is B-17F-85-BO 42-30073. Originally issued to the 384^th BG, on the 6^th of July 193 it was transferred to the 96^th BG in a straight swap with 42-5883. 883 had been named ‘OLE PUSS’, and so 073 was named ‘OLE PUSS II’, though the nose art only reads ‘OLE PUSS’. The Nose Art was painted on by Sgt Johnnie White. During 073’s time with the 96^th, she carried out 27 missions and claimed to have shot down 12 enemy fighters. Her career came to an end on the 17^th April 1944 when she was forced to belly land at East Wretham, home of the 359^th FG, just a few miles down the A-11 from Snetterton.

The 96^th BG was activated in July 1942, commanded by Lt. Colonel Archie Old Jr. After many months of training in the USA, the Group deployed to the UK, their first base being at Grafton Underwood, where the Air Echelons arrived on the 14^th April. In May, the Group moved to Andrews Field airfield, from where their first mission was carried out on the 14^th of May, with 21 aircraft being sent out, and all 21 coming back. Then in June 1943, the 96^th moved yet again, this time to Snetterton in South Norfolk. It would spend the rest of the war here, as part of the 45^th Wing, 3^rd bombardment Division. The Group would spend the next 2 and a half years there, carrying out its last mission, its 320^th, on April 21^st 1945 and they left Snetterton in December and was inactivated once back home.

The aircraft depicted here is B-17F-85-BO 42-30073. Originally issued to the 384^th BG, on the 6^th of July 193 it was transferred to the 96^th BG in a straight swap with 42-5883. 883 had been named ‘OLE PUSS’, and so 073 was named ‘OLE PUSS II’, though the nose art only reads ‘OLE PUSS’. The Nose Art was painted on by Sgt Johnnie White. During 073’s time with the 96^th, she carried out 27 missions and claimed to have shot down 12 enemy fighters. Her career came to an end on the 17^th April 1944 when she was forced to belly land at East Wretham, home of the 359^th FG, just a few miles down the A-11 from Snetterton.

 On the 29^th may 1947 it was re Activated as the 96^th BG (Very heavy) and was inactivated again on 27^th June 1949.

The village of Snetterton is in South Norfolk. It lays just to the North of the A-11, one of the major roads into the county that runs from Norwich, to the north, and heads South towards London. The airfield opened in May 1943. It lay right next to the A-11, to the South of the road. On my first visit to Snetterton back in the late 70’s early 80’s, the road was still a single carrage way. We went in through what was the old gate, and you could see how close to the road the runways were and some of the old buildings were still there. The road has since be turned into a dual carrage way and many of there old features have gone.

 In June 1943, Snetterton became home to both the B-26’s of the 386^th BG and the B-17’s on the 96^th. The 386^th only stayed a few months, moving out in Sept. The 96^th was one of only 3 B-17 BG’s based in Norfolk. Most B-17’s were stationed in Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. Snetterton, along with the other 2 Norfolk B-17 bases, Thorpe Abbots (100^th BG) & Deopham Green (452^nd BG) are all in South Norfolk close to the border with Suffolk.  When the 96^th left for home in Dec 1945, the base was used by the RAF until it was closed in Nov 1948. It then fell into disuse until it was bought in 1952. The runways and perimeter were seen as ideal for motor racing. The first bike race took place in 1953 and the first car race in 1954. Today it is still used for motor racing, both national and international. It is also used for a massive market every Sunday. Recently the old airfield, now known as Snetterton park, has be transformed with a Garden Village and SP models, who have a sign on the A-11 claiming to be the worlds largest toy shop. True or not I don’t know, but it defiantly is very big, the model section is at the back and took me a good 5 mins to get to walking through all the other toys and hobby sections.

But, despite all the modernisation, Snetterton, and in deed Norfolk and the rest of East Anglia, has never forgotten the friendly invasion by young men with strange accents and strange habits. 

This has to be one of the most impressive war memorials i have yet seen.

Thanks for looking.

Really great work on your B-17 Bish , the weathering looks perfect ....

and Owl , well WOW , awesome work with the foil on your P-51 ...

I've made some more progress on my 1/72 Tamiya P-51D ;

The decals are on but not without some stupid mistakes on my part ... ;

Because I cut the wing flaps to pose them lowered , I then had to cut the white wing strip decal to size but I didn't realize that the front of the strip goes completly around the leading edge of the wing right up to the landing gear bay . I measured just from the wing edge , which then left me a little short at one end and overlapping at the other , real stupid stuff ! Thankfully the over lapping is on the underside of the wing . the rest of the decals went okay .

Another small error I made was I forgot that the tyres have white walls on them , I sprayed mine black , so I'll strip the black off with some windex window cleaner and remask the silver hub and re-paint the white first .

The two Refuelling trucks and Recovery vehicles are all painted , so just some assembly required to fit all the pieces together ;

I gave everything a couple of coats of gloss clear so I can add some black enamel wash around the recesses and then add the vehicle decals .

So moving along nicely despite my stupid mistakes .

                   John .

Cheers bish. I shall endeavour to keep up with progress photos. Im sure everyone here knows im rubish at getting them lol.

Scorpio, sorry mate, had a hectic weekend and didn't see your post. Ye, thats fine. Any kits started by the end of the month are good to go. I am then going to leave it until the end of November before i do a final round up. Any stiull not finished can be added as they get done.

OWL, thats coming along nicely.

Afraid i haven't been able to do my write up for ole puss, the 96th or snetterton. I am going to get onto that over the next couple of days before i start my next project.

OWL, nice going on the invasion stripes.  They're not easy to mask for.  It's hard to keep them straight and consistent, with all the angles and curves.

Update in which I'm scooting along!

Here is the finished foiling. I got the different hues from using both the shiny and dull side of the foil, as well as scrubbing select panels with 0000 steel wool for yet another shade. The two panels around the exhausts are foil stained/darkened using a bleach-water-lead mixture illustrated in the magazine a few months back. Some of the areas that are hard to cover with foil ( i.e. curvy wingtips) and the fabric covered control surfaces were painted silver.

then, I coated the foil with a protective layer of future (except the fabric control surfaces. I did not want any glossiness on those). The decal sheet calls for a beat-up bird, so the glossy-shininess of the foil will not be permanent. After the Future cured, I masked off and painted the white invasion stripes.

after waiting a day for the paint to cure and to avoid pulling up large chuncks of paint, I masked off and painted the black invasion stripes, as well as the blue nose.I then scruffed everything with the steel wool to get the beginning of chipped and weathered look going

OWL

I can vouch for that microscale stuff.

I know theres only 10 days left in the GB. but is it possible to change my Dragon P-51 to a Tamiya 1:48 P-51B 436813 C5-E 364FS Lt Jerome Jacobs "Pappy's Answer"?

It wont be done in 10 days but im guessing those who are already enrolled will get the opportunity to complete?

bobbaily

Owl-nice work on the Mustang.  I like the look of real aluminum-makes a difference.

What do you use for adhesive?

I use the Microscale metal foil adhesive. It comes in this 1oz bottle that lasts a long time. Ive done 5 aircraft in 1/48 scale and Ive only just reached half way.

Owl-nice work on the Mustang.  I like the look of real aluminum-makes a difference.

What do you use for adhesive?

Hi, Bish; thanks for the description of what you did.  I think the Airfix is basically a re-pop of Academy (with, oddly, some subtle differences).

It was that one piece, with the two gun barrels and base that was missing.  The two actual tail pieces were there, on the clear sprue.  I bought these off ebay some years ago, and each kit has had a problem.  Makes me wonder if the seller didn't remove some pieces before the sale.

All pieces were there for the Cheyenee turret, but the fret for the Boeing was gone, and it included the tail guns and the RDF football, so I planned to cut a piece of sheet styrene to fill in the gaping hole, somehow construct the canvas, and use the gun barrels from the Cheyenne fret.

The way Academy/Airfix has constructed it, with the guns attached to the base, it's difficult to finish the tail, seal everything up--and then paint, without snapping the little barrels of during the process.

I'm hoping to make some substantial progress this weekend.

check, i am not sure what the tail is like on your kit, on the Academy its a seperate piece. I left the guns out during assembly and tried to fit them after, but that didn't work. I had to take the tail off, this was after i had painted and decaled, and fit the guns from the back. The guns came as one piece, basically two plastic rod with no feature attached to a base piece. I had removed the guns and added resin barrels. I ground down the base a bit, slide the 'canvas' over the guns, after makeing two holes, and wrapped it round the base. Then slide it all into the make of the tail and tried to get as good a seal as i could. I wish i had taken some pics, but afraid i didn't.

Its now finished and i have got some ppics, will get them up by the weekend. Just need to write up some history.

OWl, doing the panels that way really gives a great look,all the panels seem to look different. I do like useing Alclad, but i may just give foil a try one of these days, just to see what its like.

Bish

OWL, that is looking rather nice. I have not use foil for an NMF. Is each panel foiled separately, as thats what it looks like.

yup, the panels are (mostly) foiled separately. You dont have to do it that way however, it just depends on what look you are going for. I well oxidized bird, as well as a chromed showbird, will be mostly one tint and you can do the foiling in chunks. But if you look at pics of NMF planes from the war, you will see a variation in the panels. That is what I am attempting to do with the different sections.

Bish, I'm currently working on my final Fort for the GB, "Our Gal Sal."  (Haven't posted pics since it's the same as the first two, until I get to the paint.)  The part with the tail guns was missing, so I was considering how to fix this up.  I thought aluminum foil, but maybe your idea of tissue paper would work just as well.  It's an alternative to try, if the foil doesn't cooperate.  Thanks for the idea.

OWL, your NMF looks really good. 

OWl, that is looking rather nice. I have not use foil for an NMF. Is each panel foiled seperatly, as thats what it looks like.

here is a snapshot of where the foiling is now, Im almost done!

Bish, that's a great looking plane.  The fading is excellent, and the panel line treatment is outstanding.  The enhancements to the guns visible in the nose are very well done; even the little barrel covers!  It's really a fine build, worth all the time you lavished on it.

Looks great Bish....fantastic job on the faded/weathering effect....very nice.

Right, as promised, some photos. I am really likeing how this has turned out. Not bad seeing as it was about to get stuck in a box and would have been forgotten about.

Just got a few more parts to add, so should be done by tomorrow.

Some great work guys, a real flurry to the finish. Got 2 weeks left to run, not including time added on for builds already started.

I haven't had my camera for the last 2 weeks. The B-17 is almost done, i will hopefully get some pics up tomorrow night.

Good luck with the foiling , owl .

My 1/72 Old Crow is going along nicely , I was able to get the neutral gray and olive drab airbrushed and followed on today with a few light coats of clear gloss ;

Tomorrow I'll airbrush the wheels and prop blades flat black and get her standing on her legs ready for decalling .

            John .

thanks guys!

here's where the mustang sits now. Next is foiling!

I think your vehicles are coming out very well, for such small little creatures.

Fascinating paint scheme.  Maybe I missed it, but is it RAF?

Awesome cockpit detail , Owl ...

Really nice P-51D build there too Bob .

My 1/72 P-51D is ready for masking so hopfully tomorrow I can get some neutral gray laid down on her .

In the meantime I got bogged down a little when I decided to make windscreens and cab door windows for my support vehicles ...

I airbrushed the chassie frames of all four vehicles and some of the other parts and then I started to cut and file small pieces of sheet plastic to fill in the window openings ;

Bedford QL and AEC Matador...

I only made half windows for the doors to give the impression of them being partly down ;

Bedford OX and Coles Mk7 crane ...

It took a lot longer to do than I thought and I'm a little disappointed with my efforts , considering the amount of time I spent making the window's .

Oh well ; I'll putty any small gaps around the cab parts mask the windows and continue with the painting .

Hopfully by the end of this week I'll have the P-51D finished along with the trucks and I can then start on the Hasegawa B-24J . As for a dio , I think I will just glue some grass matting to a piece of board .

                         John .

Right i see. Well in lieu of pics of the actual aircraft, i would just go for a general weathering. I would think most aircraft in a certain area would weather in a similar way. And while getting the right markings and paint job for a certain model is one thing, getting the exact weathering is a bit different, unless its something unusual.

Bish

Afraid i don't have much on the P-51 OWL, what are you trying to find out.

what the weathering looked like. All I have is the decal sheet, and that only shows the profile.

Afraid i don't have much on the P-51 OWL, what are you trying to find out.

does anyone know where I can find photos of "The Flying Scot/Viscous Virgie"? Im having a hard time finding images that aren't color profiles. I already tried littlefriends.co.uk, but no dice.....

Thanks Bish.  I'll make it a point to take a better picture and post it tomorrow.