I have a Doolittle 1/48 B-25B and I’m going to use the Accurate Miniatures flight deck . I want to have my B-25 “tied” down as in the picture:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h53000/h53295.jpg
What would be a good material to use as the ties?
There is something wrong with that image. Note the second aircraft…no propellers and it doesn’t appear to have a crew inside doing an engine run up either. I would use some thread suitable for sewing canvas as it is heavy enough to replicate the heavy rope they used.
I noticed that as well but it doesn’t matter in this case. I just wanted to show how they had the aircraft tied down. I have other pictures as well showing the tie downs and they are the same as in this picture.
I think the B-25 in the background is running up because the prop hub is on the crankshaft. Otherwise you you see the splined shaft of the crankshaft if the prop was removed. You can’t see if there is anyone in the left pilots seat from this angle to say there is no flight crew. There may be someone in the nose seated in the jump seat against the bulkhead. Also notice there are no yellow tips painted on the propeller blades of the ship in the foreground so the spining black blades are virtually invisible!
Two other points on the B-25- the cowl flaps are open while in the foreground on the inactive B-25 they are closed. Also the forward crew belly hatch is open as well. All those things put together with the above post say it was just the angle of the photo to block out whoever was running the engines as she sat tied down.
That airplane has props. The engines are running and the photo was taken with a slow enough shutter speed that the prop blades
are not visible. I base my opinion on the fact that I can see the prop domes…
All the best
Ray
I think you can see a shadow from the props on one of the engines.
More likely that’s the spinner shadow…
They wouldn’t be flat straps, but they make some braided fishing line that really looks good in small scale. Rick
Those tie downs in the picture sure look like chains to me! Anyone else seeing that? Take care, Len
Those are ropes as you can see the lashings and knots.
Definitely not chains. They would have used line, probably sisal hemp. You can pass lines through the tiedowns and tighten them more easily. There are no pelican hooks or other devices used to tighten and lock chain visible. In Navy parlance, “line” is hemp, cotton, nylon, etc. “Rope” is braided wire. If they had nylon line back in the day they wouldn’t have used it. It stretches under strain and eventually breaks. I knew a boats in the Navy who lost his foot at the ankle from that.
You can see in these shots it’s the work of some skilled boatswains mates who knew their rigging
Ok…I see it better in the pics you posted. The picture with the aircraft in the rear ,with the props in question, really looked like chains to me but I see it now. Guess I gotta face the facts…time to break out the bi-focals…lol!
The third plane in line in the first photo has #1 engine running also. Apparently an engine check somewhere in route. The weather seems fairly good in the photo, while they were in moderately rough weather just prior to mission launch. If that photo were taken just prior to launch, I would think that they would be removing those tie downs as fast as possible.
Darwin, O.F. [aln]
Excellent photos. The top one shows alot of detail that you can use such as engine covers and the stencil on the nose wheel cover.
Other photos I have show a tarp over the rear gun turret. What would be a good material to use for that?
I prefer facial tissue for tarps…
The tarps I assume were olive drab from pictures of the museum diorama I have. How do you color the tissue? Any specific brand of tissue?
No brand, just whatever I have lying around… What’s important is that has no poofy texture… Tarps are generally OD, but aircraft tarps could be tan as well…
The tissue that you get to add with gifts is great to use. I has a texture that scales out fine for fabric canvas. As far as the OD shade goes, at that point of time with US Army gear, OD canvas was much closer to the Khaki shade made by Tamiya or Gunze