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Douglas RB/EB-66 Conversion - or maybe not!***FINISHED***


PeterB

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Thanks Craig,

 

In fact the underside is now painted so the white primer helped.

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I will leave it to harden overnight then mask up and start on the upper surfaces.  Incidentally, the first kits I built in SEA camo were at the end of the 1960's with the war in Vietnam increasingly in the news. I started with the 1966 Revell "Tactical Strike Fighter" aka F-111A/B, followed by the Frog boxings of Hasegawa's F-100D and RF-101C, and as I recall some if not all the instructions called for white undersides, and curiously, so do the ones with this kit! These days a light gray - the pic colour is out and it is very pale in real life - seems to be the accepted norm, but I do wonder if any were actually painted in white? Either that or several of the kit manufacturers have got their facts wrong! I believe that the second Humbrol Authentic US pack included the grey as HU 10 FS36622 and I started using that at some point, once I realised the apparent error - probably when I built the second moulding Airfix F-4 as an F-4E - OK it was the first moulding with extra bits to be precise.

 

I have painted the wheel wells and the inside of the doors in the same gray, but the legs and wheels look to be a silver colour.

 

The large "bulge" under the tail with the sort of cresent shaped end is in fact the Chaff chute I gather. I can't be bothered opening it up so I will use black paint for the opening. There are also a number of large black panels to be painted on the underside later, together with the small blister under the wells.

 

Pete

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Hi,

 

Acrylic paints can be a pain at times but when they work they certainly speed things up!

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Still a fair bit of touching up to do but getting there. Next step will be the various black bits, including the band on the tail. Some references say that the dielectric panel on the tail could be either black or dark brown, and one modeller used mid stone in his build but the photos I have mostly show black.


The paint scheme is mainly as in the Italeri instructions as they agree with another source I have and the colour pics in the Aerofax book, except for the vertical tail, so I have used the other source and pics for that. Unfortunately nothing I have shows the inside of the engine nacelles and pylons. or the part of the fuselage that they obscure in the side view, so that will have to be guesswork!

 

As Dave mentioned, the decs include a machine with a big shark mouth, but tempting as that is there are a couple of problems. Firstly the colour pic of this particular machine shows that it had a non standard paint scheme with not only 2 greens but 2 browns/tans as well. secondly the decs are a bit iffy - like the inside of the box they have black patches on them so I suspect they have got damp and a bit mouldy. I may well end up cannibalising some other decs and/or printing some myself. Earlier I mentioned the positioning of the wing "stars and bars" but it seems Italeri were correct - they are in the direction of motion rather than parallel with the wing centreline as seems to be usual on US planes with swept wings, but although the kit ones are smaller than the ones in the B-66B kit, I may use some stock ones which are even smaller.

 

The one remaining unanswered question is the actual colour of the various blade aerials including those on the sides and top of the fuselage - they look as if they may be white rather than the light gray I have used on the undersides or even two colours with the leading edge looking like white and the rest gray - any info would be welcome!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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Great job on the camo scheme Pete, acrylics can certainly speed up the painting process can't they.

As for the aerials I would be inclined to go with white rather than the light grey of the undersides, on most aircraft such as the EB-66 the majority of pics I have seen of them have white aerials, sometimes black but mostly white.

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This is the bit that always seems a little tedious - touching up!

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As you will see I have painted in the black panels on the underside and nose, and un-masked the side windows. I have also put a blanking plate into the rear of the engine nacelles and glued in the upper section of the wheel doors as it seems they were normally closed except for when the u/c was actually travelling.

 

Once I have cleaned up the engines I will try and tack them in place so I can work out the paint scheme. I will also have a shot at finishing off the black nose and the panels on the tail. I will leave off all the aerials until the decs are on I think as they would be far too easy to break/dislodge. A couple of days should see the decs going on.

 

Pete

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Ok, I am retired and my wife and I are once more in local lockdown - Welsh equivalent to Tier 2 I guess. When the weather is good she gardens, but I just watch TV and kit bash. sad individual that I am!

 

Anyway - I am still touching up but have made some progress.

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As you can see the gear is on and I am working on the remaining doors. The canopy is on but needs a bit of work, and I have made a start on the engines. I have tested the decal sheet and it seems to work OK, except for the dark patches, which seem to be bleaching out in my window but it depends on how much sun we get. The question now is do I use the kit scheme complete with shark's mouth even though the camo will be wrong, or do I have a go at lashing up some markings for one that had the normal scheme - decisions, decisions! I suppose I should really go with the latter so the scheme is correct, as I have insufficient info on the 5 colour scheme  carried by 54138 Just to clarify, the kit provides markings for 54138 of the 42 TEWS, 388 TFW based at Korat RTAFB in 1973. This aircraft was unusual for two reasons - the shark mouth marking and the fact that, as confirmed by a colour pic in the Aerofax book at Korat, it had a non standard paint scheme of not only 2 greens but also two tans, but the one and only pic does not give me enough info to paint an accurate scheme, and indeed Italeri show it in the standard paint scheme as in my above pic.

 

What do the moderators think with regard to the rules? This plane clearly was in Vietnam but can I use the kit decals and scheme even though the colours are almost certainly not quite right?  

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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With a lack of photos it can't be proved that she wasn't re-painted in the standard camo scheme Pete, and it is very unusual for a USAF aircraft of the period to be painted differently to others, though there were "dodgy" batches of some of the paints which caused them to be a different shade and these were later re-painted.

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Thanks Craig,

 

Should of course have said 54438!

 

In fact my first thought when looking at the pic was that the second "tan" was in fact just heavily faded normal tan, and that maybe it had been given a partial repaint - pics of ones that have only been in Davis - Monthan boneyard a short time show a similar sort of shade. Then I noticed that other parts of the paint scheme did not fit the normal pattern as well, though standard colours were used. I am not exactly sure when and where the SEA camo was applied but I guess it would have been touched up "in the field" sometimes. Given that the Aerofax photo is undated (most of them are which is irritating) and that the Italeri info says 1973, I would guess this plane would have been repainted at least partially at some point given the conditions in 'Nam. Having said that, the USAF database suggests it was only in theatre for a couple of years, being returned home at the end of November 1972 so Italeri's date is open to question!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Progress continues apace as they say.

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Touching up is finished - at least until I spot something else I have missed! The doors are done and the engines coming along so I have put on the "non aircraft specific" decs - the rest are waiting for a bit of sun to finish bleaching the white parts, hopefully. 

 

The black rectangles on the vertical tail are yet more dielectric panels, and the light grey bare plastic patches on the fuselage sides are where I have peeled off the Maskol I put over the location marks for the large side antennae. Once the engines are done they can go on, together with the wheel doors and the various aerials, and that will just leave a few decs and the refuelling probe. In my experience, kit pitot tubes and refuelling probes are usually well oversize but in this case I wonder if Italeri  thought the probe was actually a pitot as it is very thin and fragile - it will be replaced by some thicker brass tube. Assuming the decs work and Rich @trickyrich agrees with Craig @modelling minion that I can use them, this should be done before too long. Sometime I will convert the B-66B to an EB-66C as intended, but I think I will take a short break after this one as I have some kits I want to build in the Heller GB and others which are not GB related.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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very nice Pete, she looks great with decals on.

 

Acrylic paints.....other than for airbrushing I don't like them at all, they just constantly pull up the paint underneath I find when brush painting.

 

As to the colour dilemma.......it may have been a result of bits/panels taken off another aircraft, some sort of re-spray with "she's close enough" paint or a completely different batch..... or a 100 different other things.  Unless you have 100% accurate pictures of this weird 5 colour scheme I reckon go with the safer standard SEA scheme and add the Sharks Mouth. To be honest no one would know any different.......plus everything looks better with Sharks Teeth!!!  :thumbsup:

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Well, in spite of their age and the "mold" spots on the backing sheet I am pleased to say that the decs worked fine.

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Looking again at the one and only pic I have of this plane, I suspect that when the shark's mouth was added they also extended the black area on the nose back to make it look better, but I have not bothered. So that's the decs finished so on with the engines.

 

And a few hours later - spot the difference!

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Still not got round to spraying the Whale. So a little more touching up to do - inevitably, and then just the refuelling probe, three wheel doors and 31 antennae to fit - fortunately 18 of them are mounted on 4 "racks"!

 

The wings and tail are about the same, but the fuselage is quite different in some respects, and the engine nacelles are longer and thinner with totally different pylons - the ones on the Whale actually end behind the trailing edge. I have started building up wing tip nav lights with my "constipated" old bottle of Krystal Kleer, which I have kept for this sort of job. I do have a newer one which is OK for windows.

 

The end is nigh!

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Hi Craig,

 

I guess if I had put the original bomber versions side by side, with the same pointy nose and cannon tail, the difference would have been rather less noticable, and the silhouette from underneath  would be almost the same.

 

Speaking of underneath -

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Doors and 29 aerials on - 2 more to go on top and then I just have to sort out the IFR probe.

 

This is turning out to be a very enjoyable GB for me, but also a slightly strange one. I can understand that nobody else is likely to build an EKA-3B or this oddity, but I did expect to see a couple more F-100 and F-105, though I guess there is time yet. Instead we have had a fair number of the less obvious choices, and noway near as many F-4, F-8, A-4, A-6 and A-7's as I anticipated. As to the B-57/Canberra I must say I am surprised at how popular that has turned out to be. I hope they all get finished!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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That was a much quicker build than I expected.

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The refuelling probe was a PITA to fit and perhaps I should have used a slightly thinner brass tube but it is on now. The probe was usually all black but the pic I have of this actual plane shows that they painted the front end in white. Could have been worse as I have seen at least one with a red spiral round white as in the old "barbers pole" which used to be displayed outside some shops when I was a lad. I have not seen any recently so maybe they decided that the "blood and bandages" symbol of a mediaeval barber-surgeon was no longer quite the right image these days!

 

The kit is pretty good, and the fit not too bad given its age - as far as I can see the only noticeable things it is missing are the fuel dump pipes under the wings and the warning beacons over and under the fuselage. If I had noticed them earlier in the build I could perhaps have added them, but I won't bother now - it is a bit like a porcupine and the less I handle it the better.

 

So. I just need to check for any final touching up, mask the transparencies and it can join the Whale in the queue for a finishing spray. Looking at the pic I think I should perhaps have had a straighter demarcation line for the gray under the engines but it was difficult to tell until I actuallly glued them on the wings - it will have to do.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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14 hours ago, PeterB said:

As to the B-57/Canberra I must say I am surprised at how popular that has turned out to be. I hope they all get finished!

 

Cheers

 

Pete

So do I 😉

 

Chris

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Well I think she looks great Pete, and when she has her matt coat on she will make a worthy addition to our gallery.

Doing the barbers pole stripes on a probe isn't as tricky as you might think, paint it white then cut a thin strip of masking tape and wrap it around your pole (ooh err!) trying to get it as close as possible to the amount on the real thing and then paint the red. When it is dry remove the masking and you have a nice stripy pole.

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Sprayed, and waiting for some decent weather for gallery shots.

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Ok, I took the lazy option but it has come out quite well. I will do the conversion before too long but it will take a lot longer - less aerials but more bulges and pods!

 

As the deadline is still a way distant, I might, just might consider adding another kit, but if not, then thanks to the organisers and moderators for setting up and running this GB, thanks to those fellow modellers who have provided useful info, and above all, thanks for watching.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

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  • PeterB changed the title to Douglas RB/EB-66 Conversion - or maybe not!***FINISHED***

Thanks,

 

I have already done the EA-6A in an earlier GB this year, and I don't have an F3D kit to convert, so ignoring other variants of the EB-66 I guess that just leaves the EA-6B Prowler. I know some did get to 'Nam but I doubt I have suitable markings for my Hasegawa kit - must have a look!

 

Later - right unit, but 7 years too late and modified quite a bit by then so no Prowler for this GB! Anyway, I have just remembered the Interceptor GB, so I will probably enter a kit or two in that.

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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The sun finally made an appearance so it is in the gallery, but here is one to close down this thread,

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Whilst I was digging about in one of my roof spaces, I found a box with a number of completed kits in, including my 2nd Airfix Phantom - the multi version of the original USN release, which I built as an F-4E in SEA colours. I also found this!

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The first kit I ever built in SEA colours, the 1967 or so Revell "Tactical Fighter" aka F-111A/B. It has been refurbished with new markings and better paint, and over the years the "pivoting" wing pylons I lashed up have fallen off, as has the nose probe, but otherwise it is complete. I know it is not accurate as they rushed out a copy of the prototype with optional nose and wingtips for both the USAF and USN versions, together with "working" u/c and escape capsule, but in its day it was a bit of a ground breaker. I am glad I did not throw it away as I thought, and must get round to building my much more recent Hasegawa version. An unbuilt version of this boxing could be worth a bob or two now as it includes probably the only F-111B ever released! Having said that I have just seen one without instructions on a certain well known auction site for only around £12, so maybe not.

 

This has been a fun GB, and I may yet be back for another build, though I suspect not.

 

Good luck to those still building - you should have plenty of time yet though I know many of you have work to go to, unlike me.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Nice build(s) Pete, I've enjoyed watching this, having one in stock helps with that & it's good to know they go together ok. That SEA scheme certainly is an attractive one, maybe why it features in so many of my planned builds. Seeing it given form is always nice. :)

Steve.

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