Anyone know how good this kit is?
It is a rerelease of the old Crown kit. It has some issues but it is a decent kit from its era.
There is a great B-52 build article in Aerospace Modeler Magazine #10
Thanks—I’ve got that issue–do they use that kit? I particularly like the kit because it has some cool early-era markings, one from the Cuban Missile Crisis timeframe…
That would be an interesting kit to build. It shows the original manufacture configuration with short nose, but without EVS, fuselage tail extension (Phase VI mod), or any of the various lumps and bumps & antenae BUFFs aquired over the years. The NMF finish would be a welcome change to camouflage and dark gray.
Darwin, O.F. [aln]
Something about the nose dosn’t look right in the picture. The “H” models I’ve seen had blisters all over the place, and hard points added to the wings
gary
Read the post above yours. The kit version is an early BUFF, before they got a lot heavier and uglier.
It’s a decent kit from all I remember of building it when Revell reissued it back in the 80s.
It had rather heavily engraved panel lines from what I recall, but those would be easy enough to fill in if you wanted to.
The trickiest part was getting the main landing gear assemblies into position in the fuselage as there are no positive locating devices for them, just a long, flat “floor” that goes into the fuselage that you glue the tops of the gear assemblies to.
The question I would have about it is what are the weapons options in the Minicraft boxing? The Revell issue had a sprue that included a load of SRAMs, a pair of Hound Dog Missiles, four Skybolt missiles and a Quail drone. However, that sprue was a different colour plastic to the rest of the Revell kit, so I wonder if those weapons options were peculiar to that issue only.
At any rate, it was an enjoyable build to me. Besides, it’s still your only chance at an early B-52 in that scale.
Looks like a different release of the Minicraft kit I have.
Mine also has the Skybolts, Houndogs, and SRAMS, the entire kit is molded in dark green except for the one sprue with the underwing stores.
The decals in mine represent 60-0061 while it was based at Sawyer AFB in Michigan with the 410th BW, 11th BS.
Wanna know what’s ironic? 60-0061 was the very first B-52H to receive the upgrades and the kit doesn’t have them[:(((]
the very first H model was built over at Dayton, and was a reworked earlier model. I saw the plane when it landed right beside me, and saw them drag it out when finished almost a year later. It didn’t look like anything on the box. We didn’t know whatkind B52 it was as they brought it, and an AP told us that it was a new prototype B52. Probably close to twenty years ago
gary
All G & H model B-52s were manufactured at Boeing’s assembly plant in Wichita, Kansas, the last H rolling off the line in 1962. The nose radome was all one piece and somewhat longer than the two piece units fitted on all of the “tall tail” BUFFs. The EVS mods in 1971 through 1977 added a slightly longer radome and the conspicuous FLIR and LLTV blisters under the nose. The Phase VI Defensive Avionics System mods from 1970 to 1977 added a 36" plug to the tail between the rudder and the gun section. This added additional flare dispenser to supplement those under the wing and also an assortment of electonic gizmos. The G & H BUFFS have picked up an assortment of lumps and bumps for various other ECM systems over the years. IIRC, the Air Force took one G model BUFF, which normally had J-57 engines and replaced them with the TF-33s as a test to see how the new engines were going to work on the H model.
All BUFFs from the D model on up had the hardware for mounting the pylon under the wing, next to the fuselage. This was originally for the GAM-77 or AGM-28 Hound Dog and in later models for the Skybolt, SRAM, ALCM and various iron bombs and smart munitions.
Darwin, O.F. [aln]