1/72 - Martin XB-51 by MikroMir - released

[LN-KEH]

14 hours ago, Middo said:

Frankly, I'd buy this even if I wasn't into post-war 'what if' builds - anything to help a Ukrainian producer at this time. I just hope some make it through to the UK suppliers. As it lost out to the Canberra mine will go into Vietnam War camouflage.

Linked in from an article in "the Aviationist"

https://theaviationist.com/2020/10/28/first-flight-of-the-xb-51-the-weirdest-plane-youve-never-heard-of/

 

[Peter O]

There is a lot of XB-51 information here:

 

https://ww2aircraft.net/forum/threads/martin-xb-51-panther.50493/

 

More profiles by the above artist are on his page:

 

https://www.deviantart.com/talos56/gallery/10881348/b-51-collaboration

 

 

 

 

[Robert]

Those profiles are very interesting. I hope the kit is a reasonable price as l might get a couple.

 

Regards

Robert

 

[Hook]

7 minutes ago, Robert said:

I hope the kit is a reasonable price

€ 54,95 at the Aviation Megastore.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

(No affiliation with that lot other than spending way too much money there)

[Neil Lambess]

23 hours ago, hsr said:

It’s an old minor movie in English. They may have never heard of it 

 When you do an image search on the XB 51 lots of images of the "Gilbert " show up , so ild be surprised if they were not aware of it ....(unless they didn't look at any online images when they did their research- scary thought !🙄

[Neil Lambess]

Its arrived ....im really  hoping the 72nd scale plans in the Ginter book are overscale other wise the model is seriously underscale   will do some measuring over the weekend but the fuselage is 1.5cm short in length and about 7mm to shallow in depth against the plan...looks like a xb51 though even if it does turn out to be 1/78th

[alt-92]

On 4/6/2023 at 11:03 AM, Hook said:

(No affiliation with that lot other than spending way too much money there)

WSYP

 

 

_{we share your pain}

[Peter O]

1 hour ago, Neil Lambess said:

Its arrived ....im really  hoping the 72nd scale plans in the Ginter book are overscale other wise the model is seriously underscale   will do some measuring over the weekend but the fuselage is 1.5cm short in length and about 7mm to shallow in depth against the plan...looks like a xb51 though even if it does turn out to be 1/78th

Scaling the drawing from the tip of the nose to the tip of the fin bullet and multiplying by 72 gives an overall length of 88.7 feet. The Martin data table on the next page gives the length as 85.1 feet.  Scaling just the fuselage length gives 85.1 feet. So the age-old question (think Testors/Italeri Hustler) is whether the table dimension is LOA or fuselage length. All three of my published sources (Ginter, Wings of Fame and Kev Darling's Martin XB-51 Dragon) show the 85.1 foot length, without saying fuselage or LOA. My presumption is that the 85.1 feet is the overall length to the tip of the fin bullet.

 

There are also some station numbers in inches on the drawing. I checked the three I could read -- 447, 647 and 747.5, and got 1/88, 1/81 and 1/79 scale.

 

The drawing shows several places where it's been pieced together, whether the original paper version or from stitching scans together. So it can only be taken as an approximate rendition in any case.

Edited May 5, 2023 by Peter O

[MVW]

Hello,

the drawings in the Ginter book are too big for 1/72. As Peter O stated correctly, there are station numbers on the plans. The nose tip starts with station number 100, so you can adjust the plans accordingly as I did. Then the kit fits very well with the drawings (and the dimensions), except the wing span which is wrong on the plans and the undersized tyre diameters. I'm a bit suspicious about the nacelles - do they really have those heavy teardrop shaped sections as on the plans? For me the pictures show only modest teardrop section shapes if at all. Something I have to take a closer look....

 

Martin

[Peter O]

21 minutes ago, MVW said:

Hello,

The nose tip starts with station number 100, so you can adjust the plans accordingly as I did.

Martin

Are you sure? The 100 is WL (Water Line) 100, which is a vertical datum line. It's on the aft end of the line also. The station numbers are technically Body Buttock Lines (BBLs), at least in US parlance. Having said that, it's possible that the station numbers start at something other than 0, but it normally would have been stated if the nose wasn't zero.

 

And just to confuse things a bit more, manufacturers often add or subtract length in the course of development without changing the station numbers, so just because it says 747.5 doesn't necessarily mean it's still 747.5 inches from the front. Boeing was great for doing that in the 717 (C-135)/707/720 series.

 

Peter

Edited May 5, 2023 by Peter O

[Sabrejet]

Station numbers should be OK: at this time Station Numbers would have been revised when additional fuselage length was added (e.g. F-86 series). The name 'fuselage station' was common parlance and 'buttock plane' was usually reserved for wing stations. 

 

However, station zero (as stated) is not always the furthest extremity of the nose; sometimes it is the first datum of the fuselage jig in production. Either way, it should be possible to work out if the fuselage is to scale or not.

[MVW]

Hello again,

I have a general arrangement plan where the nose tip is described as STA100. After checking that, on the same plan I found an indication of the wheel / tyre size for both main landing gears: 15.5 x 20 LP Dual. 15.5 x 20 makes no sense to me, I interpret LP Dual as Low Pressure and two wheels. Has anybody a descripton for the 15.5 x 20 ?

 

Best Regards,

Martin

[Space Ranger]

The USAF Standard Aircraft Characteristics chart shows the fuselage length to be 85.1 feet from the tip of the nose to the end of the fuselage jet nozzle; see here:

http://www.generalstaff.org/CDA/Air/B-51/XB-51_SAC_26-SEP-1949.pdf

[Peter O]

1 hour ago, MVW said:

Hello again,

I have a general arrangement plan where the nose tip is described as STA100. After checking that, on the same plan I found an indication of the wheel / tyre size for both main landing gears: 15.5 x 20 LP Dual. 15.5 x 20 makes no sense to me, I interpret LP Dual as Low Pressure and two wheels. Has anybody a descripton for the 15.5 x 20 ?

 

Best Regards,

Martin

On many aircraft tires, the two numbers are the width of the tread and the diameter of the wheel, with no outside diameter stated. I don't know if the LP meant low pressure, since heavy jet tires tend to be high pressure. The KC-135 and FB-111 tires I worked with in the late '70s were (by my 45-year old recollection!) 160 and 240 psi respectively. We used a different system, with three parts including the "Type" rating, which indicated a speed range.

[Peter O]

1 hour ago, Space Ranger said:

The USAF Standard Aircraft Characteristics chart shows the fuselage length to be 85.1 feet from the tip of the nose to the end of the fuselage jet nozzle; see here:

http://www.generalstaff.org/CDA/Air/B-51/XB-51_SAC_26-SEP-1949.pdf

Duh! I've got that (actually 3 different dates/versions) but totally forgot about it. Thanks!

[J.C. Bahr]

I have not looked at my Anigrand kit to compare, but I did check my Execuform one with the drawings included with it, and the fuselage is shorter than the Execuform (so Execuform may be too long itself?)... but the height of the fuselage seems to be the same between the two.

[SleeperService]

7 hours ago, MVW said:

After checking that, on the same plan I found an indication of the wheel / tyre size for both main landing gears: 15.5 x 20 LP Dual. 15.5 x 20 makes no sense to me, I interpret LP Dual as Low Pressure and two wheels.

LP most likely stands for Low Profile referring to the height of the tyre wall being less than the tread width. Dual is two wheels mounted side-by-side as you state.

[UberDaveToo]

On 4/5/2023 at 6:31 PM, LN-KEH said:

Linked in from an article in "the Aviationist"

https://theaviationist.com/2020/10/28/first-flight-of-the-xb-51-the-weirdest-plane-youve-never-heard-of/

 

Now that's just ricdileous. But I like it...

 

Mine is on its way on a slow boat from Ukraine.

[UberDaveToo]

Has anyone turned out Gilbert XF-120 decals yet?

 

 

[UberDaveToo]

I got mine! 😊

 

 

 

[Hub Plott]

On 5/6/2023 at 12:39 AM, UberDaveToo said:

Has anyone turned out Gilbert XF-120 decals yet?

 

 

They are in the 1/48 Collectaire kit so if no one does them in 1/72 you could get a scan of that sheet and reduce it and print your own.