Old Airfix B-17G Bit o Lace paint question

[old thumper]

Just got my old Airfix Flying Fortress "Bit o Lace" out of the stash with a mind to enter it in the Radial Engines Group Build.

The thing I need to know is did Bit o Lace ever have an entirely yellow rudder and tail surfaces?

I understand of course that the olive drab, nmf and aluminium doped areas were replacement parts from scrapped bombers following battle damage and that originally these areas would have been yellow, but.  The but is that I seem to recollect hearing that Bit o Lace was the second name given to this particular aircraft, in which case it may well have had these olive drab repairs made while under its previous name.

 

What with this being such an old kit I'm not particularly concerned with accuracy as all I want to achieve is a nicely built retro looking model. Having said that I don't want to make the model any more inaccurate than I need to. In my mind if I start adding o/d battle damage repairs then I also need to add weathering, if possible for this model I would prefer to keep the engine cowlings brilliant white, the tail yellow and the nmf shiny as it would be on a restored aircraft.

 

 

[FatFlyHalf]

Have you seen this?  Original film and your B17 is featured.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krhi5qPld9Q

 

[Troy Smith]

very well documented aircraft...

 https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/db/0c/f2/db0cf2cd05feb86fe825b29d5364ff9e.jpg[/img]

 

 

note the flaked off OD paint on port outer wing

 

and

 http://www.447bg.com/42-97976_d.jpg[/img]

 

 

from with more pics

http://www.447bg.com/42-97976.htm

 

 

 

 

[Potato Pete]

Troy's post pretty much covers it. Not sure she ever had an all yellow tail. When she was assigned to the 44th, it would have been prior to the yellow tail markings iirc, so nmf/doped aluminium/silver all over. If you look at the pic showing the damage to the tail (4th April 1945) in Troy's last link, the rudder is still doped silver/aluminium. Whether the silver rudder is a replacement I don't know - I suspect it was left unaltered, but that's just a guess.  The elevators appear to be yellow prior to the damage.

 

There is another site with more pics showing the same incident but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

 

Pete

[old thumper]

11 hours ago, FatFlyHalf said:

Have you seen this?  Original film and your B17 is featured.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krhi5qPld9Q

 

 

11 hours ago, Troy Smith said:

very well documented aircraft...

 https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/db/0c/f2/db0cf2cd05feb86fe825b29d5364ff9e.jpg[/img]

 

note the flaked off OD paint on port outer wing

 

and

 http://www.447bg.com/42-97976_d.jpg[/img]

from with more pics

http://www.447bg.com/42-97976.htm

 

 

 

 

 

10 hours ago, Potato Pete said:

Troy's post pretty much covers it. Not sure she ever had an all yellow tail. When she was assigned to the 44th, it would have been prior to the yellow tail markings iirc, so nmf/doped aluminium/silver all over. If you look at the pic showing the damage to the tail (4th April 1945) in Troy's last link, the rudder is still doped silver/aluminium. Whether the silver rudder is a replacement I don't know - I suspect it was left unaltered, but that's just a guess.  The elevators appear to be yellow prior to the damage.

 

There is another site with more pics showing the same incident but I can't seem to find it at the moment.

 

Pete

 

 

Thanks all, all that info is food for thought. I will start by having a look at what tail installation this old kit has.

[Planebuilder62]

Hi there

Does anyone know when the port outer wing was changed and if it was always in the badly weathered condition? I would like to build a model of this plane but my weathering skils are non existant.

 

regards Toby

[theplasticsurgeon]

14 minutes ago, Planebuilder62 said:

Hi there

Does anyone know when the port outer wing was changed and if it was always in the badly weathered condition? I would like to build a model of this plane but my weathering skils are non existant.

 

regards Toby

I believe A Bit o Lace was attacked in April 1945, suffering damage requiring the port outer wing to be replaced.   I think this attack is depicted in the classis Roy Cross boxart.

Prior to that BMF all over.

 

There was an article in 72nd scale modeller mag, which I used for this model.  Stbd outer engine doesn't have sqdn colours - so was a previous replacement.

[Toryu]

Despite the photo evidence above, tail colours remain a bit mysterious.

 

It seems that 'A Bit O'Lace' first had silver-doped rudder and elevators (as other 447 BG aircraft). After damage (to the port elevator/rudder) the rudder and the port (!) elevator were replaced with OD spares. The starboard elevator remained silver (first picture above).

There is a colour picture in Freeman 'The Mighty Eighth in Colour' p. 118 showing 'A Bit O'Lace' in the background with an all yellow rudder (like the other planes in that picture), dated 8 April 1945. This points at a later all yellow repainting (elevators, too?)

Please also note that the letter 'K' on the rudder was initially without stencil marks, and after repair was re-applied with stencil marks (picture above). So I would assume that after repair the 'K' on the port side looked different from the one on the starboard side.

Another question refers to the OD port outer wing - would the underside be Neutral Gray (most likely as an entire replacement part) or NM? Or maybe only the aileron was Neutral Gray?

 

Michael

[Coors54]

Painting control surfaces, particularly fabric covered ones affects their balance which requires removal to re balance so isn't done lightly, hence why they tend to remain in their earlier "balanced" finish.

 

Dave

[Toryu]

57 minutes ago, Coors54 said:

hence why they tend to remain in their earlier "balanced" finish.

Then only the rudder was repainted, and maybe not the elevators?