Hey gang, I’m googling my behind off and can’t seem to find a clear shot of the bombbay and gear wells of the Stratojet, if anyone knows the scoop, I would sure appreciate it.
thanks in advance,
steve
Steve,
I have seen two B-47s and both were “display” aircraft, such as the one in the Air Force Museum. The landing gear were painted silver as were the inside of the gear doors and the landing gear bays. The bays had signs that they had been painted green chromate. The outrigger gearstruts were also painted silver as was the inside of the attached door. All the wheels were painted silver. The outrigger wells were also chromate green that had silver overspray on most of that space. I have not seen the bomb bay as neither aircraft was displayed with the bomb bay doors open.
Given the vintage of the aircraft I would bet that the inside of the bomb bay is chromate green. Both aircraft were natural metal on top with white undersides, that is under the flying surfaces and the underside (lower 1/3) of the fuselage. The anti-glare panels were black as were the canopy and frames. Hope this helps.
thanks rangerj!
Steve
Having recently finished my AMT B-47 recently, the best I could come up with was chromate green primer for the interior wheel wells and bomb bay, silver gear struts and aluminum wheels, but color photos are few and far between on the net…I spent WAY too much time Googling on this one!
Merry Christmas,
Brian [C):-)]
Hello Brian,
I am currently buiding the 1/72nd Haswgawa E model. Even though there are plenty of web sites, they all pretty much offer generic information. I did see the aircraft at the USAF museum, which is an RB47, which was used well into the mid sixties. Inside gear doors were sort of an “airforce gray”, with the bays in aluminum and gray? I am pretty sure that the E model did not have this later paint job. Thanks for the input to all.
Steve
Steve,
It looks to me as though all the static display and gate guards have been painted with (I assume) aluminum paint to ease corrosion. I vaguely remember them form the mid 50’s at Plattsburgh AFB, and I think they were chromate green. Did you get the pics of the cockpit used in the Jimmy Stewart movie? The interior and infrastructure are clearly chromate green on that one, so I made the “leap of logic” that the wheel wells would also be chromate. I believe that the AMT and Hase kits are one and the same, not bad at all for theit age!
Merry Christmas,
Brian [C):-)]
I just looked through some color photos in the book “Boeing’s B-47 Stratojet” by Alwyn T Lloyd. I found 14 pictures of B-47 main landing gear doors/bays that were Chromate Yellow, 1 that appeared to be Chromate Green and two that had bright red edges with yellow insides. Some of these showed open bomb bay doors that were yellow. None showed the interior of the bomb bay. Several photos showed open access panels and their insides were yellow. Most of the struts were in shadow and it was hard to tell the color, but one was definately silver/aluminum. All visible wheel hubs were silver. Quite a few of the numerous, high quality B&W photos that show the gear doors/wells are somewhat darker than the NMF outside of the plane, but not dark enough to be Chromate Green. All struts and wheels appeared to be NMF
Darwin, O.F. [alien]
Steve:
saw your post on the color for the B-47 gear and bomb bay. I worked on the airplane at Boeing Wichita and in the Air Force. The gear and bomb bays were finished in zinc chromate. Here is a site for the castle afb museum that has 131 photos of their B-47 (http://sysm.org/gallery/b47/imgp4358) also if you do an I.E. search for Boeing B-47E there are ten pages on the aircraft. The Castle site doesn’t show an open bomb bay.