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Great of Airfix to propose an aircraft of this particular legendary raid ! Here you see General James H. Doolittle briefing the crews just before take-off on the deck of USS Hornet. Some machine guns are being removed to reduce weight and extra fuel is pumped in the tanks to cover the longer-than-expected distance to Tokyo and further on to China. Note the darker spot on the nose, just in front of the angel : General Doolittle had ordered to mask any offensive words, to avoid provoking the Japanese in case the crews got captured. Someone on this forum mentioned that the planes were repainted before leaving the USA, so no worn out / peeled away paint . The numerous pictures, however, show some lighter spots here and there on some planes at least ; I suppose these could be stains, probably caused by the salty water. Interior colours : these were apparently not uniform ? So I have a mix of Bronze Green, Zinc Chromate Green and Zinc Chromate Yellow. Bomb load : 3 x 500 lbs bombs + 1 incendiary. The kit includes 2 different bomb sights to choose from : - the standard Norden device - a simple contraption invented by Captain Charles Ross Greening (the pilot of this plane !) specifically for this raid, and dubbed the Mark Twain bomb sight. It was lighter than the Norden, and the Americans didn’t want the ultra-secret Norden to fall into Japanese hands. Aircraft carrier deck : LMG product. Crew and deck personnel : Airfix Remarks regarding the kit : - I like the way the wings are fixed onto long extension parts on interior compartment doors, thus securing a perfect orientation and a strong hold. - the top turret is just inserted in a hole and can be placed at the last moment. - the 2 transparent fuselage side panels should actually be painted, coz there is nothing to look at inside. y Front compartment filled with lead and putty. Home-made bomb sight visible on the far right. Interior colours : Bronze Green, Zinc Chromate Green and Zinc Chromate Yellow. Bomb bay : 3 x 500 lbs + incendiary General Doolittle briefing the crews and about to attach the Japanese medals to this bomb ! These machine guns are too heavy ! We need extra fuel ! Ready to go ? Good luck to all of you ! The real thing : Hari Kari-er (40-2249). Thank you for watching !

Starting this build for an event, so I am planning to finish it by November. I have been gathering the parts for this Doolittle raid build, PE parts, figures and flight deck. Had trawled the internet for information of plane tie down during ww2 but couldn’t get any decent pictures. Does anyone know how are the B25s tied to the carrier deck? Any pictures will be helpful for my little diorama. It looks like the B25s were tied to the deck by ropes but I can’t find pictures of the anchor point on deck and plane. This is the Airfix kit with the extras. The build starts with removing some areas for the PE parts.

Greetings Friends! I am late in submitting my latest kit build for your inspection! I finished this one about a week ago and have about 4 weeks into this thing! As my handle implies, I am impressed by the Doolittle Raiders and what they accomplished early in the US involvement in WW2. I started research on what airplane to build as the excellent AM (from1999) kit lets you build all 16 aircraft... I got the kit on ebay and the decals were moisture damaged, fortunately some one is selling extra decal sheets for this kit on ebay and they worked great. I decided on building 'Harri Carrier' which has the documented nose art in photos left and right, and I was surprised to find out it's the only plane with good nose art documentation. The photos of this plane on the USS Hornet have a painted out patch just in front of the nose art on both sides. The photo appears to paint out some words or a slogan... Too bad this was lost to history! Apparently someone thought the words or rest of the nose art may be too incriminating or were told to paint over it! I faithfully created a painted out patch on my model in front of the nose art like in the photos. The color of which is unknown but likely a blue or gray or black as that would be from paint available on the ship. These planes were freshly repainted in Olive Drab 41 just before the mission and loading on the deck, so are not very weathered... In reading on Harri Carrier, it was one of the lead planes on the strike... So it was loaded with (4) M7 Incendary Bombs to set a marker for the following B25's... Most Tokyo Raiders were loaded with (3) 500-lb GP bombs and (1) M7 Incendary Bomb. Harri Carrier attacked Yokahama... Some things I read described that Harri Carrier was intercepted by fighters on the mission and fought them. So more reason to build this one plane. I was able to find 3D printed 1/48 scale incendary bombs on Shapeways and ordered (4) of them which came from New York. You can see they are unique looking in that bomb bay! I tried to fix the inaccuracies in the kit: I filled the outboard Fuel Fill Cap; Used nav lights from a hasegawa P40 kit to represent the correct wing lights for the B-25B and cut off the kit molded lights; Added a Nav light on the top of fuselage; Used (original not repro) Cutting Edge Resin replacement cowls liberated from some guy's stash in California; Scratch built a Mark Twain Bombsight instead of using the kits Norden, and added the nose plexiglass patch as seen on the deck photos. I was unable to find the correct exhausts and had to use the kit parts al though they are not correct. I stowed the nose gun in the compartment like this plane had it on the Hornet. I used resin wheels for the B-25B which were excellent! I am sure I am forgetting some kit mods, but its been a week or so... It's painted in Gunsie Mr. Color Olive Drab topside and the Testor's Model Master Air Mobility Command Gray underside which represents for early war underside gray. Decals are replacement kit decals. It came out nice and my tribute to the Raiders! To you guys that complain about my backgrounds, I got a carrier deck panel from Taiwan, but it was too small for the bomber, so I used cutting mat to hide the workbench! Enjoy the pics... I liked the history lesson during the build and I tried to get this proper to the photos on the Hornet!