1/72 B-17E "Old 666" 43rd Bomb Group 1943 [WIP]

Dirkpitt289 · November 3, 2009, 11:32am

Hi guys

For my next build I will be building a B-17E known as “Old 666” from the 43rd Bomb group of the Pacific Theater. To build this I will be using and modifying the Academy 1/72 B-17E “RAF Coastal Command” as the base. For the most part this will be an OOB build except for the addition of 5 additional 50cal machineguns making it the most heavily armed B-17 in the theater. SWEET!

I will post more about this particular aircraft shortly.

Thanks for looking

Dirkpitt289 · November 3, 2009, 11:35am

Ok I was able to get a little done on the B-17 tonight but first lets look at a little of the history of this Old B-17.

History

One day in 1943 an old B-17E with the tail number 41-2666 formally known as "LUCY" was flown in and parked on an airstrip at Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. The bomber had seen better days and its frame bore evidence of its heavy record of aerial combat. It was so badly shot up it was now worthless, and was parked at the end of the runway where other aircrews could cannibalize it for needed parts. That was until a young Captain from Orange New Jersey named Jay Zeamer intervene.

Stay tuned for more in our next installment now onto the model

The Model

I started by painting all of the appropriate parts and features with Model Master Interior Green.

The green came out nice but a little too “pure” for an old bomber. So I made a little bit of wash with some black Oil paint and thinner

I placed this clean piece next to the others so you can see the difference between the washed and non-washed parts.

Here are the before and after shots of the fuselage. The photos make it look darker then it really is.

This one is a bit better

Here we see the office of Captain Jay Zeamer and 2nd Lieutenant John T. Britton

Here we see the office of bombardier Joe Sarnoski and navigator 2nd Lieutenant Ruby Johnston

Till the next time, thanks for looking

the_Baron · November 3, 2009, 12:08pm

Interesting–do I see clearly, or does the one fret have horizontal stabs for the B-17C/D variant as well?

Luftwoller · November 3, 2009, 12:14pm

Great stuff Dirk. Im looking forward to the next installment…of the model and the story. Im rooting for 666 to have a new lease of life, aww bless it.

…Guy

Daywalker · November 3, 2009, 7:36pm

Dirk- I’ll be looking forward to your progress on this one! After seeing that “Dogfights” episode on it, I have wanted to build one too. [:D]

B299X · November 3, 2009, 10:09pm

Yep, my Academy B-17G came with the sprues containing horizontal stabilizers, cowlings, props, cockpit floor and the bomb bay for the Academy B-17B’s, C’s and D’s.

HTH

Tony H.

DantheMan85 · November 3, 2009, 10:17pm

Look good so far Dirk, your Academy 1/72 kit looks to have a bit more parts to it than my Revell kit does, I could be wrong. But she looks great!

Dirkpitt289 · November 6, 2009, 9:38pm

Between clients, and trying to get some work done on the Hs 129 I only have time for a quickie tonight, After reviewing last nights progress on line I noticed something I hadn’t noticed before. I had weathered the fuselage and all the surrounding areas and yet the seats, table and wood floor were like new. It bothered me all day so when I got home I combined a little Burnt Umber oil paint and a some thinner and made a wash. Its not perfect by any means but it should look ok when seen through the nose and cockpit windows.

I know its silly but I would like to figure out a way to make the throttle control levers. I’m going to have to give that some thought

Night guys, thanks for looking

Dirkpitt289 · December 31, 2009, 7:58pm

Well its been a long time since I worked on “Old 666”. I was able to sit at my bench today at around 10:00am as opposed to 10:00pm which has been the norm these days. I guess it was the spark I needed.

Here’s what I accomplished:

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2414.jpg)

I started by using some green Putty to fill in the optional staggered waste gunners position and started to lay out some frame work using .030 square stock styrene.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2408.jpg)

Next I used .080 H-Column to make the tracks for the waste gunners window.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2410.jpg)

More frame work.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2412.jpg)

Now before I could complete the frame work i had to install the gunners window but I had to paint it first. Using some fine grit sand paper i sanded the area around the window I wanted to paint olive green. This allowed the paint to stick to the clear plastic.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2411.jpg)

Once the frame work was completed I added some interior green, and dry brushed on some aluminum to add some wear. The window opens and closes. 8)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2415.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2421.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2417.jpg)

Next I turned to the nose of the aircraft.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2423.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2424.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2427.jpg)

Well that’s it for now. I was too lazy to break out the air brush to paint these two sections. It appears a bit klunky but I don’t think you will see that once the fuselage is sealed up. Thanks for taking the time to look at my work.

Dirkpitt289 · January 1, 2010, 11:57am

Well it bothered me all night and this morning about how awful the paint job on the framework came out but I just did a dry fit of the fuselage half’s and you can barely see anything let alone the bad paint. So that’s a good thing but I still think that I will break out the AB for the next side.

Thanks for looking

Bronto · January 1, 2010, 4:51pm

Good job on the B-17 so far, but one thing if it is not too late, the rear sections of the B-17(bomb bay, waist gunner area, ail compartment) was not painted interior green, it was left in bare metal.

Dirkpitt289 · January 1, 2010, 7:06pm

Its not to late because I still have to do the frame work to the other half of the aircraft. Do you have some kind of reference that states they were bare metal? I want to be sure before I go and change the color.

Thanks for the input

richs26 · January 2, 2010, 12:03am

Check out the two oldest B-17’s in existence for natural metal: theswampghost.com (B-17E 41-2446), and the AF Museum for The Swoose, a B-17D.

edit: check out aircraftresourcecenter.com for photos of “Memphis Belle” from 1979 in Memphis, way before the AF Museum rebuild. It is in a natural state from WWII.

edit: check out the Google Life magazine images from the 1940’s and search using B-17e and you will see a natural metal waist from a B-17e.

Dirkpitt289 · February 6, 2010, 10:36pm

Ok I’m finally back with some progress to share. After looking at several B-17 books and numerous photos online I found another detail I wanted to add. What I found was that the model came with center bomb racks flanking the catwalk. What it doesn’t have were the bomb racks attached to the fuselage. These I had to scratch build

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2467.jpg)

Next I had to make some adjustments to the interior color of the aircraft. What I hadn’t realized the first time around was that the bombay was not interior green. With a lot of poking around on the Internet and talking to people with infinitely more knowledge then me was that the fuselage was commonly left bare metal like the waist gunners area. The bulkheads and the inside of the bombay doors were green zinc chromite. Also you can see I finished the frame work in the waist and nose of the both fuselage halves.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2471.jpg)

Here is the rest of the bombay area. After a lot of trial and error I found what I feel is a somewhat believable plywood. I first painted what is suppose to be wood with tan and let it dry. Later I came back with some brown and left it streaky allowing the tan to show through in places. Not perfect but not bad IMHO.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2469.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2470.jpg)

here we have the right fuselage with the assemblies in place.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2472.jpg)

Till next time, thanks for looking

a6m5zerosen · February 6, 2010, 10:39pm

Beautiful work so far-can’t wait to see how it comes out!

Dirkpitt289 · March 2, 2010, 12:43pm

Hi guys. Not much progress has been done on “Old 666” lately. By the time I get home I’m just to darn tired to do much of anything. That being said last night I was able to sit and install all the small fiddly windows (8 in all) throughout both fuselage halves. Next its time to modify and install some of the weapons. For some odd reason I decided I’m going to try and scratch build the 50 cals that Sgt George Kendrick the waist gunner had hanging on the fuselage walls near the Ball Turret as spares in case any of his waist guns jammed. He also had an additional 50 cal mounted through the floor just aft of the ball turret.

Some history of the B-17E

By the summer of 1940, the threat of war between the Axis powers and America was becoming too obvious to be ignored, and by the fall of that year the Air Corps had ordered 277 new Fortresses, to be designated “B-17E”. Bigger orders were expected to follow.

The B-17E was a major redesign. The lack of a tail turret in the B-17D and its predecessors was a significant flaw, because the easiest way for a fast fighter to destroy a bomber was to get on its tail and hammer away at it. Attacks from other quarters meant a quick pass and tricky deflection shooting. Contemporary RAF bombers had a tail turret to discourage this tactic, but the Fortress was highly vulnerable to attack from the rear.

The B-17E was given a new rear fuselage from the radio operator’s position back to the tail, where a new gun position was added. Fitting a full turret was impossible given the narrow real fuselage, so the gun position was in the form of a “stinger” with twin 12.7 millimeter guns with a limited traverse.

The new rear fuselage was about 1.8 meters (6 feet) longer. The tail gunner knelt behind glass windows and manually aimed the guns. The tailplane assembly was entirely new and bigger, featuring in particular a tall vertical tailplane. For this reason, the B-17E and its descendants were referred to as “big-assed” Fortresses, while the B-17D and its ancestors were called “shark-finned Fortresses”.

The changes didn’t stop there. As the rear fuselage had to be redesigned anyway, the teardrop-shaped windows for the pedestal-mounted waist guns were changed to rectangular windows. A remote-controlled Bendix power turret was installed in the belly, with twin 12.7 millimeter guns controlled by a gunner lying prone and peering through a periscopic sight.

The radioman retained the upward-firing 12.7 millimeter gun, but a new Sperry power turret with twin 12.7 millimeter guns was installed just behind the cockpit. The nose was made longer, and provisions were made for mounting one or two 7.62 millimeter machine guns in the front Plexiglas. The nose gun fit was not very effective, but for the moment nobody could figure out a better way to put defensive armament into the cramped nose.

Although the B-17E was heavier than the B-17D while being powered by the same engines, it was not much slower due to aerodynamic improvements in its design, with a maximum speed of 512 KPH (318 MPH).

The first B-17E rolled off the production line at the end of September 1941. Flight experience quickly showed that the remote-controlled belly turret was impractical. Trying to track an attacking fighter through a periscope was all but impossible, and much worse caused severe nausea and motion sickness.

The answer was to replace the remote-control turret with a Sperry “ball” turret with the 113th B-17E. The gunner crawled into the ball turret after takeoff and sat straddled by the two guns while aiming down between his legs. The ball turret could cover almost the entire lower hemisphere below the Fortress and could be directed accurately. However, it generally required a gunner of relatively small stature, and the gunner could not wear a parachute while he occupied it. Another disadvantage was that there was no room to store spent cartridges inside the turret, and the rain of cartridges from the ball turret could pose a hazard in formation flying.

The new B-17E was dramatically different from its predecessors. The THRILLING WONDER STORIES look of the early Fortresses was gone. The B-17E was a serious weapon and looked like one.

Back to the model

Here are the nose windows have been put in place along with other shots of the interior.

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2585.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2586.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2587.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2588.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2589.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2590.jpg)

Nose Glass, Top Turret and the Ball Turret

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2593.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2594.jpg)

!(http://i286.photobucket.com/albums/ll106/Dirkpitt289/Old 666/IMG_2595.jpg)