Well guys, it’s time to put the “wish-list” together for 2005. Im looking to add to my modern US/OIF/OEF shelf, and have my heart set on adding a B-1B soon. I don’t have the $ or the shelf space for a 1:48, so I’ll have to settle for a 1:72. The choices for this scale are either the Monogram or the Airfix offering. I’ve heard mixed reviews for each. Any thoughts from the “BONE” builders out there?
What’s on your “wish-list” for 2005? Frank
Get the Monogram kit, the Airfix kit just doesn’t look right at all ( might be made from a prototype) The Monogram kit needs work but it’s outline is much better. There was an article in FSM a while ago to fix/update it (Oct 2002)
[:p]
The biggest problem with both the Monogram and Airfix kits is that the bomb bays are way off from what they should be as to size and location.
I have the Airfix kit and I agree with the statements above. It’s all raised panel lines, even where there should be engraved lines to simulate moveable control surfaces. If you get your kit, the biggest improvement you can make is to get the Cutting Edge featherless exhaust nozzles (www.meteorprod.com). I’ve heard nothing but great reviews for these.
Wish list for 2005? I want the AMT/Ertl XB-70 Valkyrie and I can’t wait to see the Airfix TSR2 kit due in Aug2005.
The Monogram kit is the better of the two. The Airfix kit sorta resembles a B-1A, but not quite getting there. I’ve built three of the Monogram Bones and if you take the time to work with it it builds up rather nicely (thats true of any Monogram kit). Now I just need to build 97 more to have the entire fleet of Bones.
[}:)] Take a trip to Abilene, Texas, aka, Dyess AFB to see about half the remaining fleet. If you want the other half, you’ll have to go to Ellsworth AFB, in South Dakota. That is not recommended this time of year. 3 or 4 of the BONEs have become smoking holes. How are you going to model them?
FJLOMM,
I have the Revell-Monogram 1/48th kit if you want to buy it. Just email me at marinesgt@sbcglobal.net if you’re interested.
Ok Im curious, what the heck does that mean?
I’m curious, too.
Smoking Hole= They crashed.
I lived in Abilene for more than a year. My house was 2 miles off the center line of the runway and 1/2 mile off the end. My love affair with the Bone started during this time. There is nothing more impressive than a night launch. The only way the Bone can haul itself into the air is with FULL afterburner. Another impressive thing is the “combat departure” which where they take off and then spiral to 20,000 feet, also at full a/b the whole time.
I am going to make an attempt at doing the entire fleet of Bones in 1/72 as they were delivered. This is going to include the B-1A and the four NASA Bones.
was one of those 4 B-1’s the one that crashed in Marion Kentucky because when that thing crashed it was going so fast and so low that the sonic boom it created literally pulled the wool off of my Aunt’s sheep.
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I lived in Abilene for more than a year.
There is nothing more impressive than a night launch.
I am going to make an attempt at doing the entire fleet of Bones in 1/72 as they were delivered. This is going to include the B-1A and the four NASA Bones.
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I lived in Abilene for a year also, probably a little earlier than you did. I was there from June 1964 to June 1965 with the 578 Strat Missile Sqd, Atlas F, ICBM. I lived on N 11th St about a block west of Grape St. (the one that goes up to Impact. now why would anyone go there???) The USAF had E model BUFFs, KC-135s and a zillion C-130s there at the time.
I would put a night take off by an SR-71 against the BONE for impressiveness. 2 engines vs 4, but bigger and probably noisier.
I want to see the shelf where you display 97 BONEs! That is quite a project to tackle. I have a 1/72 MPC and a 1/72 Monogram of the B-1 if you are interested. Maybe sale, maybe trade.[^] [:D] I think the MPC is the same kit as the Airfix, just in a different box.[?]
I was working as an aviation writer at the Houston Chronicle the very first time a B-1 was transformed into a smoking hole. I believe it was in 1985, but the memory fades. I was young then, oh so…young. But I remember well that this $270 million (that’s in 1980 dollars, folks) airplane was brought down when a pelican that, to the best of my knowledge, cost the taxpayers not one cent, went through the leading edge, tore up some vital organs in there and the aircraft and the crew perished in an instant. A lousy ten-pound pelican brought down the Bone before it was barely operational.
But, remember, one of the most beautiful bombers ever to take wing (next to the B-47, of course), the B-58, ended its brief career with something like one-fifth of the about 120 total airplanes built lost in accidents. So, even if it is little more than a beautiful waste of money, like the Hustler, the Bone is way ahead of its Delta winged predecessor safety-wise (the B-58, by the way, was more than twice as fast as the B-1. Not bad for a design that began in the early 50s.)
I know I’m starting to sound like a salesman for Eduard, and trust me, I’m not, but their upcoming Dec. releases also include a set of metal for the 1/48 Monogram B-1 kit’s exhausts. Not cheap though: list is $29.95. That’s worse than those two simple resin B-25 nacelles Cutting Edge has for $25 I keep grousing about. But I’m addicted to AM stuff, and especially metal things. Still, $29.95 for four photoetched tail pipes?
Tom
FJ,
If you want a great B-1B you need 2 things, The monogram kit and the back
(Oct 02?) issue of FSM and follow the article and you’ll do well!
Good Hunting,
G.W.
Guy’s,
I built the Revell/monogram 48 scale Bone, painted in the Grey and Green scheme with AM decals about 6 years ago, sadly I sold it as I had no where to keep it safe, I’ve since bourght another along with all the Cutting edge decals and have been given a made up one. I’ll hang them from the garriage or workshop roof when I complete both of them.
A brief and irrelevent B-1 story: One year a Bone came into Ellington Field for the Wings Over Houston Airshow. Now, this base is home to NASA’s Air Ops Division, an ANG F-16 Squadron and what was at the time an Army Guard Cobra unit. Needless to say, there is a very large government fuel farm at one end of the former AFB to keep all those thirsty birds slaked. But when the B-1 arrived, it was met by a great big fuel truck from the one civilian FBO at the base. Odd, I thought. Then, I saw what was following the bowser: A black stretch limo full of beautiful women to meet the crew and take them…well, I don’t know, but I was told…
So the taxpayers shelled out double the money to gas up a B-1, the FBO was a happy man (turns out this was sort of SOP and he frequently serviced transient military a/c. I saw a KC-10 in front of that big FBO hangar one day!) and the crew were even happier.
TOM