Boeing B-17 Felix 1/72

[kalle]

This B-17 story is not the first time here, as I have seen the same aircraft model here before and this was very good model. I may have shown a picture of my own model somewhere here for a while, but I thought of doing it longer this time. Felix's story has already been told here, but let me write it here as I once wrote about this model on my website, maybe someone will find it worth reading

 

The story continues from where the B-17 and Sweden collide. As a strictly neutral country, Sweden was an escape route for pilots from both sides of the war whose planes got into trouble. So it was that planes that were hit in combat or had a technical failure often aimed to land over Sweden and then disembark there. Sweden's neutrality meant that aircraft and crews that entered the country were interned, although in the early part of the war the crews were able to return home. Later, however, so many distressed people began to appear that they were no longer allowed to go. Quite a large number of those men stuck in Sweden were B-17 crews. At the same time, however, the Swedish airline ABA (AB Aerotransport) had the problem of replacing its two DC-3 aircraft that had fallen prey to German fighters on the routes between Scotland and Sweden. The two problems were solved when ABA President Carl Foreman and American Colonel Felix Hardison came up with a plan to trade men for planes. This is how the Swedish government got possession of 9 B-17 aircraft for the release of the Americans 7 of these planes were converted into 14-seater passenger planes at the Saab factory, the other two were scrapped. The nose section was redone, the bomb compartment became a luggage compartment, and the bomb hatches also got a new task. One was closed and reinforced, the other became a loading device. Passenger space was divided so that there were 6 first class seats in the first half and 8 second class seats in the back. The aircraft was officially given the additional name Felix after the American author of the idea. The completed aircraft were later split between ABA and SILA (Scandinavian Airline System), plus two were sold to Denmark's DDL They were used on a variety of routes, the longest of which was to the US in June 1945. In total, the Felx made 31 such trips before being replaced by the DC-4 in 1946. The Danish Felixes were in operation until 1948.

 

As for the model, I have to say that years ago I collected a bunch of different Academy b17 models. Probably with the idea of making bombers out of them. But later I became fascinated with airliners made from bombers and Lancstrains, Haltons, Whitleys and so on came into play. Among them was Felix and the idea was born. The bomber could wait, first "From swords into plowshares," By then, the Revell box had also appeared, which of course I had to get, and the Academy offering was starting to fade. However, I decided to go ahead with it because I didn't want to start cutting the Revell yet. However, the beautiful Revell was attractive and so I had to help the Academy to improve as well. To do this, I took a harder route, cutting it along even with the better bits of the old Hasegawa, and on top of that I cloned parts from the new Revel box. Next, I had to start making the content according to the available pictures, so that it could all be neatly hidden inside the halves of the body. Here are some pictures of this build:

 

 

 

 

 

And finally the finished model.

First, I must say that in addition to the rather raw resin parts, the Magna Models box also included decals. In the original, the windows were also intended as decals, but of course I skipped that part. Other than that, the decals were one of the biggest horrors I've experienced and the end result looks like this plane has been in service for many years. However, I decided not to start cutting masks myself, and that's how it stayed. Also, around this time I read that the Academy model was supposed to have a serious dihedral problem, but I just decided to ignore this info, because my model was ready and maybe it still fits to eye.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Armorrich]

Dang Kalle...thats simply amazing work and the first I've heard of this aspect of Swedish neutrality. Thank you so much for shareing this beautiful model and the history of it. 

 

Cheers my friend...Rich 

[janneman36]

Nice Kalle this pax B17 is looking great 👍 

I love it !
 

cheers, Jan

[busnproplinerfan]

I heard of a few airliner B-17s but haven't seen this one yet. These had such a neat post war life of various roles.

[MrB17]

Nice to see these civilian service B-17’s. Great job with the extra detail and the dihedral looks normal to me. I have seen others with the exaggerated dihedral, but you have somehow managed to get it right.

 

Cheers

 

Jeff

[javlin]

Now that is one interesting scheme but can you imagine the noise for the passengers?

[Orso]

Some interior pictures on this site: https://worldairphotography.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/the-story-about-the-only-b-17-flying-fortress-in-the-royal-danish-air-force/

 

[georgeusa]

Thank you so much for the background story on this aircraft as this use of the B-17 was new to me.  The model you created is just great.  Thanks for sharing the story and the build.  You did good.

 

[Vingtor]

Very interesting to see!

I did the same conversion some years ago, including the interior. I made my own decals though.