I just finished watching a thing on the B-29 and they said only a few were painted in camouflage and the rest in NMF. How many were painted in camouflage?
Only the YB-29s were OD over neutral grey as far as I know… By the time the B-29s reached operational status in the squadrons, the USAAF did away with camouflage on most aircraft, although many AAF tactical aircraft that were based on the European continent after Overlord were returned to a camouflaged pattern on upper surfaces… During Korea though, many B-29s were indeed camouflaged by painting the undersides black while leaving the upper surfaces in BMF…
The early production machines only had camo on them, somewhere between 30 & 40 in total from what I read.
There was some sort of USAAF directive released in late 1943, which discontinued camo on most aircraft, for cost, time & weight reasons.
Ah…that’s so pretty…love seeing that image of superforts in OD!
Shouldn’t be too hard to convert the Revell kit into a YB-29. Have to convert the front top turret to be a twin mount, unless you want to try one of the different defensive variations they tried.
You don’t have to make a YB-29 to have a Camouflaged B-29. As stated above there were numerous production B-29s painted in OD/Gray finish. Most of them flew from India over the hump to China on resupply missions. .
Thank you so much for that photo ‘Hans von Hammer’. I’ve had the Revell “Cream of the Crop” for a while and wanted to do it in OD over Grey because I just flat do not like NMF.
I thought there were less than 30 or 40 in that scheme. I guess I was way off.[clwn] I don’t like NMF’s either. They look good on a plane but its getting the right look that’s frustrating.[bnghead]
There is an article somewhere (?) regarding B-29 camo that states “around 40” were done before the change. As tyamada correctly states these were used as supply birds over the “Hump”.
Wings Palette http://wp.scn.ru/en (A usefull site for camo schemes - worth looking at if you havn’t already) shows the 29th B-29 (Esso Express) in upper OD, it was a fuel hauler over the “Hump”;
IIRC, at least one of the three B-29s that were interned and then reverse engineered by the Russians to become the Tu-4 Bull was one of the OD/NG birds - don"t have my references here but will try to check them tonight.
Easier to make them YB-29/B-29s than to convert them to the Hump birds, I think… The Monogram/Revell 29 comes with the parts to fair over the turrets, but there’s a fair amount of surgery that goes along with using the fairings…
I heard those fairings weren’t a good fit, as well. Better to make your own than to use those.
That’s why I said a fair amount of surgery, heh…[t$t]
ou have to cut the turret races out of the fuselage halves, then glue the fairings in, then sand, sand, sand…
And use a good amount of elbow grease!