B-29- What paint scheme should I use?

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

I face a quandry, although it’s a quandry that’s good to have, I guess. Recently, I picked up Academy’s 1/72 B-29, a kit I’ve been wanting for a while. Now that I have it, I can’t decide on what color I should paint the sucker! As packaged it’s meant to be a Korean bomber, with the black undersides- this is a look I’m quite fond of, but… well, here’s my options.

-Korean bomber OOB. Silver, black undersides, blue patches here and there- very nice. Added benefit of using kit decals.

-The B-29 from this photo:

Again, it’s the nice Black undersides. Markings would have to be custom, though, and research would have to be done to get correct codes. I DO plan on building an XB-36, so there are DEFINITE diorama possibilities here.

I just realized this B-29 has no guns. Therefore, it’s out. I’d like my bomber to have teeth.

-Olive drab over Neutral Gray YB-29. Seeing as how only 8 of these were ever made, it’s not a scheme you see too oten. I don’t know what conversions would be necissary to backdate it, though, which may be an issue.

-A YB-29 with a twist. The fourth YB- was used for armament tests, and a conversion to THIS airframe wouldn’t be too difficult. Check out the two black and white photos and note the nose turret and fuselage package guns.

As of right now I’m leaning toward an OOB build, but like I said- right now, I could go either way. So I figure hey, why not see what you guys think?

2

Seems the major exterior differences are small, the most obvious being the lack of de-icer boots…

3

Dug through my references and came up with a couple pictures. According to Boeing B-29 Superfortress (Bowers, 1999), the first 40 B-29-1-BW’s built at Wichita were finished in olive drab and gray. Finding pictures are apparently challenging though, through the five or so books on the B-29 on my shelf there were less than a dozen.

I scanned the few I could find and labeled the pictures with the references I took them from, along with a portion of the caption.

The caption provided no information on the aircraft, and the quality of the image makes it difficult to discern if the B-29 in this pic is green / gray or overall black.

If you are up for minor tweaking of the airframe, and given your affinity for Soviet aircraft, how about completing a Tu-4?

4

DUHHHH!!!

The TU-4 Bull

5

OD or Tu-4. You don’t see too mant of those builts compared to NMF B-29s.

6

[#ditto]Although I do favor the OD a little more[:D]

7

I gotta vote for OD. It just isn’t that common, it would be fitting…[:-^]

8

We’re seeing a strong consensus LH, OD would be kewl.

9

The Tu is more tuned to your twisted ways Lucien, but I vote for the OD also!

(Hey!, what’s with your wanting to build something that others have built?)[(-D]

10

I’ve always liked the B-29. In fact, I blame it as one of the aircraft for getting me addicted to WWII aviation in general. As a young kid I remember seeing the Nova special on the team trying to fly the “Kee Bird” out of Greenland. Thus, the NMF/Black scheme is something I’m real attached to. In addition I fell in love with the cover art of a B-29 reference book, also sporting the same Korean War scheme.

This is the crux of my problem. My love of odd stuff (OD, Tu-4) is conflicting with these early views of the B-29 as an “All-American” bird.

I think… I don’t know. I’m going to build more than one of these, this I know- an OD one, a “Monstro” one with parasite XF-85, and a Korean bird. Which one first, though…

11

You know, surely you of all folks know this, you build what interest you. I for one would love to see your talents worked on one of these OB birds but in the end it’s what you want. [2c]

12

Well, I’m known for doing something completely different than anyone else, right? It seems everyone wants an OD paint scheme, so…

After a bit of thinking, I think I’m going to end up doing the NMF over Black offered in the kit. The box option is quite colorful (silver, black, and blue, along with nose are and kill markings, and it’s been too long since my last nice NMF finish.

Mark my words, though, the next B-29 I build (and there WILL be more!) will be the OD. Then, after that, a Monstro/XF-85 combo. And no, that’s not something I WANT to do… it’s something I’m GOING to do.

Heck, if I manage to royally screw up the finish on this one, I may paint it OD anyway!

Thanks for everyone’s input, though, and I’m sorry if I disappointed anyone.

13

I sense a sinister tendency to think inside the box here. Acquire another kit, or two, and build ALL the schemes! Let loose the inner builder, express yourself in styrene!

14

Drats…next time guys, we use reverse psychology on him… [8-]

Sure nuff, looking forward to seeing anything you do.

15

Here are some more odd balls off the B-29 line to whet your appetite, with all pics scanned from the same book. A line up of projects derived from the B-29 will devour real estate fast in 1/48 scale, but would be an interesting sight.

Potential projects to add to the list:

16

See, THIS is part of the problem I face- there’s too many cool projects to build!!

I’ll get to all of 'em… eventually. [:I]

Hey! I’m young! (The testbed with manned turrets is going to be my FOURTH B-29, BTW.)

17

They look like regular Spurry turrets on the bottom, not sure about the top turrets, same as the B24 maybe? The two cheek turrets, gives a new meaning to a Mae West.

18

I think the OD over gray would be pretty cool, too. It reminds me of the old USAAF manual my best friend’s dad had, from his time in the service, and the one end paper had a pic of “coming attractions”, one of them being the B-29. It must have been one of the Y’s. Seeing it in the camoflage was a surprise for me at that time, since I had only ever seen the natural metal finish.

I’m not sure the Russian bird is sufficiently different for it to stand out in comparison with other American NMF birds. But the OD livery you sure don’t see every day.

Second choice would be the test bed with all the manned turrets, in a diorama with a full crew. You could field two baseball teams with that many men!

Regards,

Brad

19

Yeah, the balls are Sperry turrets, the top look like the Martin Electrics. I do know that there’s a resin Martin turret available (or there was anyway) that came in a 1/48th detail set for the Monogram A-26 out there somewhere, I bought it some years ago for a planned (but never started) B-17-to-YB-40 conversion…

Also, if you ever want to do a Superfort dio with the turret being serviced, the Monogram P-61 used the same turret as the Super Fortress. In fact, that’s part of the reason (besides the buffeting issue) that some production blocks of Widows were fielded without turrets; they were needed for B-29 production.

20

According to the book, the upper turrets are indeed Martins.

Given the trend, how long before Trumpeter kits a 1/48 B-29?

After putting some thought to it, this is a plane that would benefit from one of the odd scales. The 1/48 and 1/72 take up to much space (the Academy B-50 sits and waits in my stash) to acquire a collection, whereas 1/144 is too tiny to really work some magic with details on. It would be a real nice kit in 1/90 or 1/100 scale.