Italeri 1/72 X/YB-35

This is of course the old AMT/Ertl kit reboxed by Italeri. OOB build as there is no AM available for it I don’t think. I painted in the insignia, aircraft number and walkways. I sourced the crew STL files from Cults3D and 3D printed them myself. Base is cork cut in to tiles to represent concrete slabs. It’s a clunky fitting kit and needs work to get good fits in areas. I used Ak Xtreme Metals for all the NM shades.















2 Likes

Great looking build. Really nice NMF. All those dudes fit in that plane? What on earth did they do?

1 Like

I read there were 9 crew, there are 6 seats just in the cockpit section, but no idea what every one did.

1 Like

Had the B-35 gone into service, it would have needed four men to operate the wing turrets, one for the dorsal turret, one for the ventral turret, and one for the tail cone gun. That’s seven guys already! Then the usual standard complement of pilot, co-pilot, flight engineer, navigator/bombardier, and possibly an in-flight mechanic.

That’s like an entire football team in there!

1 Like

Regarding the number of crew the comments are pretty much spot on. Pilot, Co-pilot, Navigator, Bombardier, Flight Engineer, Radio Operator, 3 x Gunners. The Bombardier would often be another Navigator, responsible for the target acquisition and attack profile. As late as the 80s the RAF Vulcan had two Navigators - Nav Plotter (Astro shots and other external aids like LORAN, TACAN, NDB/ADF, DME, VOR) and Nav Radar. As an aside when I learned to navigate the RAF C-130 in the early 90s I trained on and use LORAN, Astro, and OMEGA operationally. GPS was only introduced on RAF C-130s in the mid 90s by means of a PLGR with the GPS aerial in place of the sextant fitting.

2 Likes

Ah yes, the venerable PLGR. We had a few in our Tactical Comm Package and I loved the Army Tech Order/Comic Book that came along with it showing Sgt Snuffey walking off a cliff because he didn’t know how to use his PLGR… :rofl:

1 Like