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

You're welcome, Ken. Another piece of the mosaic eh?  .

Russ

Striker8241

One interesting note - if you noticed, some of the airmen in my photos were wearing long sleeve fatigues. This might seem odd for troops working in the heat of SEA. However, for the bomber guys, it was a fact of life. Most of us were stationed in colder country so long sleeves were standard throughout the Air Force. When we deployed  to SEA, we took what uniforms we had.

Although the US military had already approved a new light-weight fatigue uniform with short sleeves, they were only issued to folks stationed in SEA in the late sixties (as far as I know). However, we were allowed to roll our sleeves up above our elbows as long as they were even on both sides and didn't cover our rank.

In 1969, I was stationed at Takhli RTAFB in Thailand. We were issued the new fatigues and they were great. They were light weight and made of a loose weave so they were a lot cooler. They were also made of stronger material to resist rips and tears, and they dried quickly compared to our original fatigues that could take an hour or more to dry in the humid air.

Most guys shed their shirts anyway as soon as they got out to the aircraft, even with the newer fatigues.

Cheers,

Russ

Thank you Russ for that information!  I was wondering why my Dad was wearing long sleeves in his pictures taken in Vietnam!  Now I know.

Ken

One interesting note - if you noticed, some of the airmen in my photos were wearing long sleeve fatigues. This might seem odd for troops working in the heat of SEA. However, for the bomber guys, it was a fact of life. Most of us were stationed in colder country so long sleeves were standard throughout the Air Force. When we deployed  to SEA, we took what uniforms we had.

Although the US military had already approved a new light-weight fatigue uniform with short sleeves, they were only issued to folks stationed in SEA in the late sixties (as far as I know). However, we were allowed to roll our sleeves up above our elbows as long as they were even on both sides and didn't cover our rank.

In 1969, I was stationed at Takhli RTAFB in Thailand. We were issued the new fatigues and they were great. They were light weight and made of a loose weave so they were a lot cooler. They were also made of stronger material to resist rips and tears, and they dried quickly compared to our original fatigues that could take an hour or more to dry in the humid air.

Most guys shed their shirts anyway as soon as they got out to the aircraft, even with the newer fatigues.

Cheers,

Russ

Thanks, Ken!

Russ

Striker8241

Hi, All,

I did a preliminary setup of the diorama and discovered I'm one maintenance stand short to cover all of the maintenance scenarios. I'm not in the mood to build another B-4 stand so I decided to used the tilt and roll stand in the Hasegawa Pilot & Ground Crew Set (X72-7). However, there were some issues with the way they modeled the stand. The handrails are way too large in diameter for that scale. I trimmed and sanded the handrails and managed to get them pretty close to scale. Any more and they would be too fragile to work with. And I didn't like the solid work platform - all maintenance stands I used had open grid platforms that provided a safe non-skid surface. So I replaced the solid platform with an open grid platform. A couple of pictures are below.

Cheers,

Russ

 

Gosh Russ, with the modifications you had to make, you might as will have made it from scratch!  It looks great by the way! 

I had a co-pilot who always said the following just as we got to the C Ramp.

"Rings, rags and tags.  Hatpins, stickpins and accoutrements."

It is still a habit with me also.

Bockscar

Russ:

"I'm not in the mood to build another B-4 stand so I decided to used the tilt and roll stand in the Hasegawa Pilot & Ground Crew Set (X72-7)"

Gosh Russ, is that, like, errrr, cheating.....LOL

Lol, Dom!  Nope, I originally planned for 4 maintenance stands but I remembered that the turret maintenance guys often used the gunner's hatch to get inside the gunner's compartment and test whatever repairs they made so I opened the hatch, and that requires a B-4 stand. Actually it worked out better as the t&r stand fits under the nav antenna compartment just right - better than the B-4.

Bockscar

Hey, you can see how dangerous it was to work on BUFFs, that little guy looks

like he lost a thumb in a real bad engine maintenance accident.... ouch!

It really was, Dom. A lot of guys lost digits working on planes. Many lost their ring fingers jumping down from a stand or the aircraft and catching the ring on something. The Air Force had lots of posters warning maintenance guys to remove their rings and watches for this reason. I got so used to taking mine off I often found it in my pocket and couldn't remember taking it off. That habit still remains with me today anytime I work on my car or any machinery.

Actually, this guy lost his thumb trying to open a beer at the NCO club .

Russ:

"I'm not in the mood to build another B-4 stand so I decided to used the tilt and roll stand in the Hasegawa Pilot & Ground Crew Set (X72-7)"

Gosh Russ, is that, like, errrr, cheating.....LOL

Looks pretty good from here,

Hey, you can see how dangerous it was to work on BUFFs, that little guy looks

like he lost a thumb in a real bad engine maintenance accident.... ouch!

Dom

Hi, All,

I did a preliminary setup of the diorama and discovered I'm one maintenance stand short to cover all of the maintenance scenarios. I'm not in the mood to build another B-4 stand so I decided to used the tilt-and-roll (T&R) stand in the Hasegawa Pilot & Ground Crew Set (X72-7).

However, there were some issues with the way they modeled the stand. The handrails are way too large in diameter for 1/72 scale. I trimmed and sanded the handrails and managed to get them pretty close to scale. Any more and they would be too fragile to work with. And I didn't like the solid work platform - all maintenance stands I used had open grid platforms that provided a safe non-skid surface. So I replaced the solid platform with an open grid platform. A couple of pictures are below.

Cheers,

Russ

Bockscar

Even if a guy is the lowest soldier sweating to load bombs with

a lift truck, it is hard not to be envious in a way.

Those jammer drivers look great, and the jammer trucks are very cool.

The last clip looks real clean, but tell me,

how come you painted the fuses silver instead of brass?

Jess wundrin'.

Wish I understood the engineering of those jammers, man

they had to produce a lot of torque.

Revetments are looking good, no bullet scars or rust.....lol

Dom

Hey, Dom,

Thanks for the good words. I remember the bomb fuses were a silvery metallic color. This is confirmed by every picture I have of the bombs with fuses inserted. I suspect they have stainless steel on the outer casing and arming propeller assembly, and that there's brass on the threaded insert and any other part where friction or static electricity might be a factor. Brass is heavy and expensive and they probably use it only where necessary.

Russ

Striker8241

Hi, All,

Just to assure you (and myself) that I'm going to finish this beast, here are some recent completions. First is my third bomb clip. I left off the end brackets, angle supports and hanger eyelets because the clip is going to be installed in the bomb bay and these details will not be visible.

Next are my two jammers that I finally finished. These took longer than I expected but I'm happy with the results.

 

Lastly, I've been building the revetment segments. I had to come up with a way of joining the segments that will keep them in alignment. I decided on two guides that attach to one end of a segment and fit into the next segment. Each segment has guides at one end, except where the segment butts up against the back row.

 

I've also begun printing out the new tarmac slices and should have them in place this weekend. There's still a lot to do on the diorama, including a host of figures that I have to shape and paint, but I anticipate I'll finish it at least by the end of the month.

Cheers,

Russ

 

 

Even if a guy is the lowest soldier sweating to load bombs with

a lift truck, it is hard not to be envious in a way.

Those jammer drivers look great, and the jammer trucks are very cool.

The last clip looks real clean, but tell me,

how come you painted the fuses silver instead of brass?

Jess wundrin'.

Wish I understood the engineering of those jammers, man

they had to produce a lot of torque.

Revetments are looking good, no bullet scars or rust.....lol

Dom

Thanks, Ken, me too! Although, it's not easy to stay focused when I keep looking over at that C-130....

Russ

I can't wait to see this thing when you get it finished Russ!

Ken

Hi, All,

Just to assure you (and myself) that I'm going to finish this beast, here are some recent completions. First is my third bomb clip. I left off the end brackets, angle supports and hanger eyelets because the clip is going to be installed in the bomb bay and these details will not be visible.

Next are my two jammers that I finally finished. These took longer than I expected but I'm happy with the results.

Lastly, I've been building the revetment segments. I had to come up with a way of joining the segments that will keep them in alignment. I decided on two guides that attach to one end of a segment and fit into the next segment. Each segment has guides at one end, except where the segment butts up against the back row.

I've also begun printing out the new tarmac slices and should have them in place this weekend. There's still a lot to do on the diorama, including a host of figures that I have to shape and paint, but I anticipate I'll finish it at least by the end of the month.

Cheers,

Russ

Thanks, Dom! and Happy Canada Day to you!

Lol! Right you are, Dom .  I've watched them being built and it's no fun for those doing the assembling.

As for printing out a new ramp, I had a problem with color shifts with some of the slices. So I created all new slices in grayscale so there's no color information. Also, the plastic-coated poster board I laid down first on top of the wooden base turned out to be a bad idea as the plastic coating peels off when you remove the ramp slices, and also the individual boards are not of uniform thickness. If I ever do another ramp, I will use something like Plexiglas on top of the wood.

Cheers,

Russ

Russ;

Happy Independence Day!

Boring building a 1/72 revetment, only thing worse I can think of might be to be a guy building a real one.....

How come you decided to print out a new ramp? Does that mean you have to re-do all of the paw marks?

Dom

Hi, All,

Just want to let you know the Arc Light project is still on track for a finish sometime in July. I'm currently working on the revetment, which is a lot of work but boring, and the rest of the support vehicles and figures so, there's nothing that really justifies pictures or frequent updates. I'm also about to print out a complete new ramp. Again, a lot of work but boring to talk about.

Cheers,

Russ

Indubitably!  Thanks, Ken!

Russ

If you don't "bend" to their will, the mafia will break your legs.  Russ on the other hand will break your arms!   

Looks great Russ!

Ken

Hey All,

Here's my first jammer completed for the pylon loading scenario. I had to break the poor driver's arm to get him to hold the steering wheel . Speaking of the steering wheel - as it comes in the kit, it's way to thick and bulky. It took a lot of trimming and sanding to get it even close to scale.

Cheers,

Russ

Hi, All,

Just a quick update. I've been building the remaining support equipment like the jammers and some additional vehicles. I don't have any pictures of these but below is a picture of my wheel chocks. Who would suppose something so simple could be such a pain to create? .

 I learned a lot of valuable lessons in creating my tarmac file and have decided to re-do the ramp. I had some serious concerns about the color shifts that occurred with some of the ramp slices so I've done away with the color information in the basic slices so now there's only shades of gray.

 Also, I had created every slice as a unique element - a difficult and time-consuming task. I decided to use only five randomized slices for the entire ramp, and they're all the same size and shape. That greatly reduces the work in Photoshop. Now I can just load up the printer and print out a whole slew of slices instead of laboriously selecting and printing each one.

Cheers,

Russ

Hello Greg, and welcome! Many thanks for the good words. I really appreciate your comments.

Russ

What an amazing project. After having spent about 1 1/2 hrs reading a bit more than half of this thread, simply had to post a comment, even though this is waaay over my head.

Amazing scratch-building skills. The aircraft ain't lookin' bad, either.

Thanks so much for sharing this project, Russ.

Thanks, Allen!

Russ

Russ,

Wow, Major Kong is impressed!!, Love the ramp and the sky also. Oh and after a coupla pulls on the Crown Royal bottle, it looks almost real!!

Nice job!

R.Allen

Son Of Medicine Man

Pawel

Hello Russ!

That sure is spectacular! Outstanding! Monumental!

That backdrop was an excellent choice too. Wish I could do something like that too!

Have a nice day

Paweł

what Pawel said!

Ken

Thanks, Ken!

Thanks, Pawel!

Pawel

Hello Russ!

That sure is spectacular! Outstanding! Monumental!

That backdrop was an excellent choice too. Wish I could do something like that too!

Have a nice day

Paweł

what Pawel said!

Ken

Hello Russ!

That sure is spectacular! Outstanding! Monumental!

That backdrop was an excellent choice too. Wish I could do something like that too!

Have a nice day

Paweł

Hi, All,

It's late and I'm tired, but I finally got everything finished on the aircraft - at least for now. In the photos below, the wings are only temporarily attached, and probably will remain so if there is any chance I might take the diorama to a contest. There's a distortion at the front of the left wing root that I can't correct until I actually permanently attach the wings. I was very fortunate that the droop I inserted in the wings was just the right amount to allow the outriggers to rest naturally on the tarmac.

The last photo shows one of the bomb clips loaded in the bomb bay. The second clip I built is mounted to my transporter trailer so my third clip will be the second on the aircraft.

My next step will be to finish the ground support equipment and build the rest of the revetment. Then I can fully assemble the diorama.

Cheers,

Russ