I’m looking for people who have the B-52 pretty far up on their list of favorite things/planes. Stories, advice on model kits, odd quips… anything’s good! Maybe we can have this as a miniforum for those who know their nose radome from their 47 section!
The B-52 rates up there on my favorite subject list. Big, loud, ugly - but it’s all business and it wins wars.
I was really disappointed when the B-52s left our local AFB. I’m one of the dozen people or so who loved watching them do touch-and-gos.
I have four Monogram B-52s and two AMTs, but I haven’t had the ambition to start them yet. I’m anticipating a cross-country move so I don’t want to put much time into a project that will likely be destroyed by the moving company. I know from hard experience - you might as destroy a big model yourself and save the moving company the trouble.
Anyway, if you want to start a BUFF group build, count me in - as long as it’s after my relocation.
My first love as bombers go is the B-47, because my father flew them and I was born on a Stratojet base, but the BUFF isn’t far behind (and then there’s my beloved B-58). Anyhow, I recently finished the AMT B-52G and found the build a challenge, because of the sheer size of the seams, but otherwise it was pretty trouble free. My biggest problem was coming up with those very elaborate wing walks. I tried doing them with dry transfer stripes, and that was a disaster. I should have used decal stripes about 3/32 wide. Take a look at those black walk stripes on the horizontal stabs. It’s a labyrinth back there, but great satisfaction if you pull it off. I did mine as a mid-60s bird with the Hound Dogs and the clean nose.
Oh, yeah, and I’m still looking high and low for that vac-form conversion kit that turns the Monogram D model into a YB-52, with the tandem cockpit. Been looking for the old conversion for two years and still no luck. That will be one model nobody else at the show will have.
The B-52 is high up on my list of favorites as well. I built both the Monogram kit and the AMT kit years ago. During the process of moving I lost both. Somehow they missed the truck and when I went back the next day , they were gone! So if any body knows where I can get the AMT B-52H , please let me know. I’ve always liked this kit even though it seemed to get bad reviews. Hmmmm, I wonder if ChemMan…[:)]
I’m more of a WW2 aircraft fan, but the B-52 is one of the more modern aircraft that I have plans to build. I have a 1/100 Tamiya B-52D on the shelf and want to pick up the Monogram 1/72 and maybe even the AMTech 1/72 - I think that the have the B-52H in the works.
I am a SAC kid, spending my early years on or near an air base with B-58s. Ditto on the B-47 and then the B-58 (wife can’t understand why I watch Strategic Air Command over and over again!). Built the Monogram B-52D years ago (bought my first airbrush for the camo scheme). Currently having to down size the collection, so 1/144 is my chosen scale to recreate SAC’s glory years. Have the Revell B-52G and the B-52H kits. Planning on using the fuselauge from the H on the G to get the clean nose for a Hound Dog equiped G from Blytheville AFB from the mid sixties (Memphis Belle II). Recently picked up the Fox One 1/144 B-52H decals from Operation Iraqi Freedom. May end up using the Revell G model fuselauge with the H model wings and tail to make a Barksdale OIF bomber too!
May I join in? I intend to build the R/M kit converted to the B52H via the bits from Airwaves. The version I have decals etc. for is “Eternal Guardian” as at Fairford in about 1989. I am having great difficulty in working out the camo scheme - it is described as the “Tactical Camo Scheme” which appears to be greens and a grey. FS 34086 FS34081 FS 36118. Has anybody got any pictures or colour representations please?
I have a love/hate thing going on with the BUFF having spent 15 years as a crew chief on the pig. Great jet, but heavy maintenance. I haven’t touched a BUFF in almost 11 years, but I’ll bet I could still go and do any inspection or servicing without much trouble.
I would really like to join in on a BUFF build… I would like to get the Monogram kit and convert it to an “H”. I will plan on hanging mine from the ceiling though,either flying solo or using my AMT KC-135 to replicate an in-flight refueling scene.
I’m not ready to tackle one just yet. May never be but!!! I used to sit, for hours on end, in my Grandmother’s back yard just a wee bit North of Merced, CA and watch the SAC birds at Castle AFB doing their thing during the Cold War days.
It seems like I heard that everyone of the 52s that were doing the touch-and-go’s was armed and ready to head to the U.S.S.R. at a moments notice. I don’t know that that is true. Just what I have heard.
Randie [C):-)]
As more and more info gets declassified, it is astounding and frightening at the same time just how many nuke armed birds were sitting on the ground “cocked” for five minute alert, and the hundreds that stayed in the air 24/7 loaded for Bear with humongous thermonuclear bombs. My dad used to tell me about flying for 18 hours straight in a racetrack pattern over Canada or Alaska in the B-47 and how they sometimes had to be helped out of the cockpit by the ground crew becasue of sheer exhaustion, dehydration and pain. A Dad flew back and forth from Chennault AFB in Lake Charles, LA, to Fairford, UK. And the Buffs still do it to this day, almost 50 years later. But the airborne alerts stopped with the Cold War, and were scaled way, way down following one too many “Broken Arrow” incidents. There is still an atomic bomb buried in the swamps of South Carolina that was never found. Once Gen. “Curtains” LeMay retired, cooler heads took over at SAC. (Please, I’m quoting from history books here, not rendering my personal political opinion, OK? There are a lot of ex-SAC people, my late father among them, who worship the man.)
As a teenager in the Civil Air Patrol at Mather AFB, just outside Sacramento, we used to tour the alert pad and their facilities every chance we could get. The crews would come to our meetings having just arrived home from over Viet Nam and tell us stories that I’ll never forget!
Mather had twelve B-52’s on alert and ‘bombed up’ 24 hours a day. The SRAM missle racks were loaded and unloaded routinely, and they even had a few Hound Dogs sitting around, and this was 1973. I think the Dogs were just for practice.
Whenever bad weather was approaching, they would run the engines every four hours and the whole town knew that rain was soon to follow. I remember crawling inside one and thinking, “How do they cram all this electronic junk in here?” We also got to ‘play’ with a cockpit and gunnery station simulator that was very cool. The sergeant in charge of the cockpit told us he was the only person to successfully roll the aircraft in the simulator and have it recover with enough altitude so the crew could eject. Not too sure about that story, but we sixteen year olds sure enjoyed it!
I might think about getting into a group build for the Big Ugly Fat Fellow, as I’ve got two 1/144 birds with enough 500lb bombs to load it up externally.
So do we have a build going here, or just talk?
Cranky, cranky…[;)]
Miduppergunner, I believe you are describing the European 1 camo scheme, and it’s easy to paint, since the demarcation between colors is very, very soft and wide. You can hardly screw it up if you’re halfway competent with a cheap airbrush, which is all that I am and all that I have in that department.
Hey, it’s just a question! Maybe I need a nap, though. I feel a bit sl…[zzz][zzz][zzz]
Hi miduppergunner, the colors you quoted are mostly right except that FS34081 should be FS36081.[:)] As for pics try " B-52 in Action" or “Air War Desert Storm” both by Squadron. I know FSM has published the scheme as well. Hope this helps.
Oh and b6dan, if I can come up with a kit and a digital camera count me in on the build!
Many thanks bstrump - the “6” has solved the quetion as to why that colour did not appear in the list that I checked. I will check the books you mention. Once again many thanks - let me know if there is anything in the UK that I can help with - we have some good museuem here for WWII stuff. How did we function before the internet???
I’m up for a GB… but I have to get a kit first !![:D]
Like Mig17, I was also a BUFF crew chief, though not as long. I managed to get a transfer to the B-2, and got out of Minot, ND. I would love to build a BUFF, but I’d like to see a better H model in 1/72. The XB or YB would also be a great build.[8D]
I built Monogram’s “D” back in the early 70’s when it still came with the “jet sound”
module. I also helped in the restoration of the B-52D “Twilight D’Lite” at the Travis
Air Museum. For a B-52 quip, How’s this?
“The Boeing B-52…The only thing over 30 you can trust”
Ray