1/72nd Academy Fortress Mk.IIa (B-17E), RAF Coastal Command,.**FINISHED**

[tonyot]

Hiya Folks,

                I have a few Coastal Command Fortresses planned and here is the first,...... a Mk.IIa;

 

 

I undercoated the interior using Humbrol Grass Green and painted other parts like the engines, wheels etc on the sprue;

 

Then the cockpit area was painted Olive Drab to represent a dark cockpit green colour and then silver rattle can was used to paint the bomb bay area,.... there was a bit of overspray caused by my back killing me,......it will be sorted out;

 

 

There is this DK sheet,....... I`ll be doing my Coastal Mk.II (B-17F) from this one (as well as another Mk.II in 100 Group markings),....... but I may go for an Azores based aircraft using spaes box and generic decals?;

 

 

 

I`ve since tidied up the paintwork,...... cut out the waist window for the right side of the fuselage and the fuselage is ready to join,.... thought I had more pics to post,....I`ll update tomorrow!

 

Cheers

         Tony

 

Edited June 17, 2020 by tonyot

[tonyot]

My main reference is this excellent book;

 

A view of the excellent artwork in this book,..... the lower option is very tempting;

 

And Azores based aircraft wearing the same style of codes;

 

Although this 59 Sqn Fortress with ASV Stickleback antennae is tempting too,...and appears on the DK sheet too. Note the white areas from a previous scheme that had more white applied along the top of the white wing leading edges and the top of the fuselage which is now showing through the later camouflage;

 

 Another version of ASV found on the Mk.IIa;

 

 A nice colour view; 

 

OR,..... do I build this as one of the Mk.II`s (B-17F) flown by Coastal Command which did not have the US modified nose gun cheek windows and had the original 3 windows as found on the B-17E,..... it would require a B-17F style clear nose `bubble and would it fit?

 

Cheers

          Tony

 

Edited May 20, 2020 by tonyot

[stevehnz]

No preferences really, but having the kit, the decals & the book, I'll be keen to see what you can conjure up.

Steve.

[woody37]

Looking forwards to this Tony, great inspiration to do more CC stuff

 

[daryl_five_zero]

Always liked the look of the Fortress in this scheme. Whichever you decide on I'm sure it'll be a stunner! 

[StephenCJ]

Don't you hate choices?

[72modeler]

Knowing Tony, he's got a case of Academy Forts-so  I say do 'em all!  Seriously- I can't wait to see this one finished!

Mike

[Planebuilder62]

Dear Tony

How do you plan to tackle the excessive dihedral of the wings of this kit?
 

regards Toby

[tonyot]

Cheers everybody,.....I `ll get some pics on soon.

23 hours ago, Planebuilder62 said:

Dear Tony

How do you plan to tackle the excessive dihedral of the wings of this kit?
 

regards Toby

Hiya Toby,..... I`ve built a few Academy Forts now and I usually add a plastic card shimmy to the top joint,...see here;

And here are two RCAF Forts that I built a while back, in fact the above is one of them;

 

Edited May 22, 2020 by tonyot

[Billy54]

I shall follow this build with interest because I have this kit in the stash. I am more of a cold war/modern/jet kinda guy but have always had a soft spot for the B-17 especially in the CC scheme.

[tonyot]

Right,..... I think I`ve settled on FL459, 2-J of 220 Sqn in the Azores, which means sorting out those nose mounted YAGI antenna! It was a U-Boat killer, accounting for U-707 on the 9th November 1943. The ball turret was removed and faired over and as the bomb bays were taken up by overload fuel tanks, the offensive load of four depth charges was carried externally on four bomb racks under the wing roots. 

For this,..... I`ll be using this excellent Modeldecal duo of sheets,...... Light Slate Grey letters and numbers;

 

And a bit more progress,.... the waist gun position on the right side has been cut out and the hatches fitted closed,....as hardly anything can be seen inside,.....I`ll be closing up the fuselage today;

 

And,.... on my previous Academy Forts I have cut out the air intakes in the wing roots and added fairings inside,...... but this time I think I`ll just cop out and paint them black?;

 

Cheers for now,

                        Tony

 

[tonyot]

I think that I have changed my mind about the subject of the Fortress IIa (B-17E) kit,..... as I remembered photos of a crashed aircraft, FL455, Z9-A of 519 (Met) Sqn based at Wick, which crashed on the kills above the airfield on (depending on sources) 1st February 1945. I first read the story of this aircraft as a kid, but for some reason always thought it was a Mk.II,....when in fact it was a Mk.IIa,........ and it had huge red white and blue post war style roundels above the wings as seen below, which is one of a series of photos taken of the wreckage;

 

 

Quite a lot of wreckage is still at the scene to this day. 

Although 5 men survived the crash, two of them died of their injuries in the days and weeks afterwards and four were killed in the crash itself. The aircraft snapped in half at the radio room and those who died had all been in that area, where the heater was and whee they were to congregate ready for landing,..... there were three pilots aboard in the cockpit and two were strapped in with one stood behind them. The 3rd pilot was thrown about and received superficial injuries as a result. The skipper was Flt. Lt. F. Keith `Bluey' Humphries and he had been circling Wick trying to land in a snowstorm (which they had been flying in for 4 hrs of their 10 hr sortie) with his engines beginning to ice up when he just ran into a flat boggy area on top of a hill,...... bellying along and the aircraft snapped in half. Due to the risk of fire, the survivors took refuge in the tail section to sit out the storm overnight and next day a local crofter reached them, followed by the RAF Mountain Rescue Team. 

 

Back to the model,..... this one has no ASV antenna fitted and as I have wanted to model it for so long,.....it is now looking favourite.

Cheers

         Tony  

Edited May 22, 2020 by tonyot

[woody37]

Sad story, but great choice of scheme

 

[rob85]

Sounds like a great reason to build this scheme, great choice.

 

Rob

[The Spadgent]

Excellent work Tony. I will follow along with this one if that’s ok. I’m loving the CC schemes. I have the new tool Airfix kit but only Decals for two Silver birds. A G variant? Could I use this kit for a costal command scheme? Thanks for any help. 
 

Johnny. 

[tonyot]

19 hours ago, woody37 said:

Sad story, but great choice of scheme

 

Cheers mate,..... I read the full story and they were so lucky that they were not all killed,....... the aircraft basically bellied in all on its own! 

 

19 hours ago, rob85 said:

Sounds like a great reason to build this scheme, great choice.

 

Rob

Thanks Rob.

 

10 hours ago, The Spadgent said:

Excellent work Tony. I will follow along with this one if that’s ok. I’m loving the CC schemes. I have the new tool Airfix kit but only Decals for two Silver birds. A G variant? Could I use this kit for a costal command scheme? Thanks for any help. 
 

Johnny. 

Cheers Johnny,...... yes Coastal Command used quite a few B-17G`s as Fortress Mk.III`s,....... I built the Revell kit as one myself , I`ll attach a thread below.  They were initially used from the  Azores on night time anti sub patrols using their ASV, replacing Leigh Light Wellington`s,...... and were later allocated to Met Recce duties. After finishing my B-17G I went and found a photo showing the right hand side of the aircraft and I had got the location of the codes wrong,.....on this side the T was behind the roundel and the code ZZ in front!! Sods law!!

 

There is always the 100 Group route too if you fancy a bomber colour scheme!

 

Cheers fellas,

                   Tony 

Edited May 23, 2020 by tonyot

[tonyot]

A bit more progression!

 

Met Op`s position in the nose on the right hand side and the navigators position further back on the left,........seat belts applied to the pilots seats and the plug for the ball turret is in place,.... this was cut from plastic from the set of tailplanes for the earlier B-17C version which are found surplus in the kit. 

 

The fuselage halves test fitted,...... showing how a set of windows in the roof of the nose section have been filled in and the side windows have been masked off ready for the painting later,.......I did it now before the halves were joined to prevent the window from being pushed in,......something I`m prone to doing! I`ll be adding an astrodome later which will mean drilling a hole in the roof and the rearmost roof window also needs to be fitted and filled;  

 

Here are the fuselage and wings assembled and ready to join together;

 

And the underside showing the second layer of the ball turret plug, again cut from the left over tailplane;

 

The main problem with the Academy B-17 kits,...... the awful wing dihedral!

 

And the fix,...... plastic card shims for the wing roots!

 

Here are the shims fitted and the wings attached,..... 

 

So,.... with the main airframe complete,...... the model has now been put aside to dry for a while, ready for the sanding session!

 

Cheers

          Tony

[The Spadgent]

4 hours ago, tonyot said:

Cheers Johnny,...... yes Coastal Command used quite a few B-17G`s as Fortress Mk.III`s,....... I built the Revell kit as one myself , I`ll attach a thread below.  They were initially used from the  Azores on night time anti sub patrols using their ASV, replacing Leigh Light Wellington`s,...... and were later allocated to Met Recce duties. After finishing my B-17G I went and found a photo showing the right hand side of the aircraft and I had got the location of the codes wrong,.....on this side the T was behind the roundel and the code ZZ in front!! Sods law!!

 

There is always the 100 Group route too if you fancy a bomber colour scheme!

 

Cheers fellas,

                   Tony 

Thank Tony that’s great!  Reading through the second thread it all felt rather familiar. Looks like I followed you on that build back in 2016 and forgot. Oh how time flies. 🙌 I’ll have to dig out a scheme. 🤝

 

Johnny. 

[The Spadgent]

4 hours ago, tonyot said:

dihedral!

 

🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀🙀what were they thinking? 🙀🙀. Nice elegant fix by the way. 🙌

[Shorty84]

Wow, that dihedral is substancial. I've read about this problem but never saw what it looked like. At least the fix is easy enough, something to remember when I build my B-17C one day.

 

Cheers

Markus

[Learstang]

Great work on that Fortress, Tony! Like many others here, I love the B-17s in the CC scheme. I have that very nice Airfix B-17G kit, I'm building as a Group 100 Fortress, but I'm determined to do at least one Fortress in a Coastal Command scheme. I do need to buy that DK decal sheet (if I haven't already and just forgot about it! It happens...). I shall follow especially how you get on with the paint scheme.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

 

P.S. I also have an Academy B-17C and need to remember that relatively easy fix for the dihedral.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Learstang
Additional comment added.

[bigbadbadge]

Hi Tony, I hope your back feels better soon fella, great and quick work. Very interesting choice and the roundels and Coastal Command scheme make for a very interesting looking aircraft.  A sad story and this will be a fitting tribute.  

I have a 48th scale Revell/Monogram kit and one day will build as a CC machine hopefully.

Keep up the good work

Chris

[woody37]

Can’t believe how fast you’ve got this together! Fortunately, we won’t have to wait long to see this great scheme decalled!

 

[Mr T]

Coming on very sell Tony, that dihedral is really odd and your fix really makes a difference. I received the second edition of the Fortress book for my birthday and it was an interesting read as well as a useful reference guide. The Coastal Fortresses always looked good to me. 

[stevehnz]

On 5/23/2020 at 1:10 AM, tonyot said:

Light Slate Grey letters and numbers;

I do wish you wouldn't show things like this, just what I need but now unobtainable.  

Steve.

Edited May 24, 2020 by stevehnz