The Flying Prostitute- Monogram B-26 Marauder WIP

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
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" Baltimore Whore", “Widowmaker”, “Flying Prostitute” (No visible means of support), she was called many things, but she was a killer, fast & deadly, and her crews (generally) loved her in combat…

I hit a point where I’m stopped on my dual P-47 (Before & After) build and am gonna shelve it for a bit… I decided to pull the old gal outta the hangar and get her started… I picked this bird up on Ebay about a year ago, along with a later release of the same kit… But since I’ve been up close & personal to her (at least, her forward fuselage) “Flak Bait” will “fly” again… At least, I THINK it’ll be “Flak Bait”, at least right now… The only thing for sure is that it’ll be OD/Grey, lol.

The other one is slated to be in a dio inspired by Shep Paine’s “B-26 Assembly Line” diorama, and is farther down the road…

I haven’t built this kit since the first release in the 70’s and opening it was a blast from the past, although the Diorama Tip sheet wasn’t in it… Grrrr…

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Love that plane… I built it as a kid…

got 1 or 2 in my stash… somewhere…!

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more more more!

G

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This will be fun to follow, Hammer. Though, it’s tinged with a little disappointment-I was hoping you might try bashing it back to a B-26 from the early blocks, before the wings were lengthened and the rudder enlarged. I have one that I’ll be modifying like that, for my Battle of Midway collection, and I’d like to see someone else do it first.

“You jump in!” “No, you jump in first!” “I’m not gonna go first!”

Seriously, it is a great kit and I’m looking forward to seeing your build in progress!

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You forgot the training school in Florida “One a day in Tampa Bay”. That was before Jimmy Doolittle came down to investigate the complaints about the aircraft. At that time Doolittle had not flown a B-26. He requested a plane to be brought out for his testing with a co-pilot from the training squadron. The whole baase was lined up along the runway. After getting familiar with the instruments he took it off, reached 500 ft, shut off one engine and rolled the aircraft, came back around and landed the aircraft. His comment on landing was that he found no problem with the aircraft. Besides being a “pilot’s pilot” he was an engineer, I believe his first degree was as a mining engineer from UC Berkeley, then he was loaned to NACA (NASA’s predecessor) during the 1930’s and was in the intitial group to receive a PhD in aeronautical engineering from MIT. He knew planes inside and out.

Flak Bait’s nose section is displayed at the Smithsonian. It was the bomber that had the most missions flown. B-26’s seemed to dominate that list. LBJ’s silver star (probably a political award) was given while he served with a B-26 unit in the Pacific.

Mike T.

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Good luck with the build Hans. Keep us posted as you progress.

Regards, Rick

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Nice to see the box-art is still in good shape…

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Cool, I picked up one at a show about a month ago. The box looked in about the same shape but was still wrapped in the original cellophane.

If the decals are unusable or you want something different I picked up these from Zotz:

http://www.zotzdecals.com/reviews/zotz48014/zotz48014.htm

They’re out-of-stock at Zotz but Flightdecs Canada still has them.

www.flightdecs.ca

Looking forward to seeing how she comes out, I haven’t built an old Monogram kit since the '80s and if I didn’t have so much stuff on the work-bench would start on mine.

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Yeah, this one was a bit rough, there’s a several broken parts, but all are at least present… The decals are old and a bit yellowed, but the US insignia and the “Flak-Bait” art is still quite useable, and I have tons of code letters and numbers from Archer… If I don’t do “Flak-Bait” though, I got a bunch Varga-girl decals for “my” B-26, which is what I usually do, making up serial numbers and names to help keep the rivet-counters at bay… Don’t want them to vapor-lock if I put an extra gun on “42-18894, which is incorrect for your time-period as she was never equipped with that gun until after June of '44”… Thanks for the links though…

Like I said, it’s been aboutt 35 years since I buit the last one… As for back-dating it- Thought about it, laughed about it, forgot about it… There’s a few more on Ebay so I reckon that’ll mean at least one more '26 in my hangar down the road… I’ll happily follow your lead though, lol…

Good one… I did forget that, yup… But then, that wsan’t really a name either…

You might find this article about MacDill of interest…

http://www.323bg454bs.org/Assets/PdfFiles/Thunderbolt%20080303.pdf

Yupper, that’s where I got “up close & personal” to it…

Heh… Yeah… Although I never considered that period of Monogram (and Revell) boxes to have any “art” on them… I actually wrote Monogram about that switch back in the day and they even replied, a big deal to a 16-year old… It went something like, “Our marketing research has shown that people are more likely to buy a kit if they can see what the assembled model looks like” or some such nonsense… At any rate, it wasn’t long before that particular type of “art” went the way of the dodo… So much for research…

Here’s the Shep Paine B-26 dio, BTW…

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Sounds cool-- I did mine as Miss Manchester a while back…always like the nose art :slight_smile:

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I actually think the cockpit detail in this kit is pretty good, even by today’s standards…

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Looking forward to seeing the WIP!

Varga gals [ht][ks][ht]

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The flight deck’s pretty good, but the side panels are begging for more… Dunno if they were all that “busy” on the real aircraft, but they’re gonna be on this one… The nose needs a bit more as well, although most will disappear when the cone goes on… So I’m leaving it stock except for a little more wirning around the Norden…

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An old boss and friend of mine, John Merrill, from his DFC Citation;

First Lieutenant John O. Merrill distinguished himself by heroism while participating in aerial flight as B-26 Pilot, 387th Bomb Group, 9th Air Force, Mayen, Germany, on 24 February 1945. On that date, while flying the lead formation with three aircraft at an altitude of approximately 9,000 feet, his plane sustained a direct enemy antiaircraft hit. The right engine and wing caught fire, crippling his aircraft Undaunted by the impending crash or explosion and the burning and badly crippled state of his plane, Lieutenant Merrill retained his composure and continued to operate the remaining controls of his plane with such skill and efficiency that he succeeded in holding the aircraft on a level keel. Although rapidly losing speed and altitude, he completed the bomb run, ensuring his bombs were released on target He then gave orders to his crew members to bail out. He continued to control the position of the aircraft in order to permit crew members to save their own lives, with total disregard for his own safety. The outstanding heroism and selfless devotion to duty displayed by Lieutenant Merrill reflect great credit upon himself and the United States Army Air Corps.

He had some detail I can’t remember where he had to lower the nose gear to get out. He spent the rest of the war in prison.

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Put some lead in the nose too, shes a tail sitter.

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Ain’t m’ first rodeo, Doc… I think I’ve built about TWO trike-geared aircraft that weren’t tail-sitters and they were jets (can’t remember which ones though, I haven’t built any post- Korean War jets since the 70’s)…

The only place to get any weight into the fuselage is in the radio/navigator’s compartment and I have mixed feelings about that… I WANT to scratch-build the compartment. I watched a 5-part USAAF video, “Flying the B-26 Airplane” last night on YouTube, and got a lot of screen-shots… BUT- it’ll be 99% invisible if I do, unless I open the curtain between the flight-deck and that area and even then it’ll be hard to see anything… I can use the nacelles for weights if I decide build it…

The other area that can get a lot scratch-building attention is just forward of the tail-gunner’s compartment where the APU (AKA “the Putt-Putt”, according to the video) is located, which means opening the hatch there… The tunnelgunner’s compartment is rather sparse as well… It’s not noticeable with the guns stowed and windows closed, but since the guns are rather nice (for stock .50’s), I’ll probably need to have them opened as well, even though she’d be closed up back there when it’s sitting/parked…

A note about YouTube video… I tell ya, men… Those USAAF training films are invaluable for research into your aircraft’s history and for answering questions like “Flaps up or down??”,“What color are the fire extinguishers?” (They’re a copper or brass color, BTW), and the like… Just make sure that you do little more research to verify some things… I watched one other called “Tailgunner” or something like that, starring 1LT Ronald Regan and 2LT Burgess Meredith (who played a Corporal named “Willy” from Kansas who’s experience shooting crows lead him to become a tailgunner), a short film about becoming a USAAF Aerial Gunner, and it had some real “Hollyweird” sound-stage stuff, like shots of the top turret gunner in a “B-24” who was actually sitting in a B-10 or B-18 turret engaging T-6 “Zeros”…

Aside from showing the actual range-fire training, it was next to useless for research, except for showing skeet-shooting as training, technical terms and such for aerial gunners, e.i., “At 200 yards and 180 mph how much lead is needed here ?” --“One-quarter-inch from my outside ring, sir.” and, “What’s your sight-base, Corporal?” —“The distance from my eyes to the rear sight, about eight inches, sir.”

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Ain’t m’ first rodeo, Doc…

[cwby] Yippy ci eh!

Thats what I am talkin’ about! Cowboy up n’ git R’ done! Hans likes both kinds of music…

Country & western![hdphns]

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I read about that in Thomas Graham’s book on Monogram. That was apparently the Revell marketing people’s decision, after the companies merged. Revell felt it was better to show a picture of the finished model, and they had already changed over from paintings of the subject to photos of the models, for their own lines. That was a shame.

I like your story about writing to them. I had the same experience with writing to Monogram when I was a kid, regarding their armor kits. I wrote (well, typed the letter, my first one ever) and suggested that they add sets of figures to go with the 1/32 armor, and add more German scout cars (this was before I ever heard of Tamiya). I got a typed response thanking me for my suggestion. I was thrilled!

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Truthfully, I don’t remember which did that first, butI thought it EXREMELY bad on Revell’s part… Their 1/32 scale kits had some of the finest box art ever, IMNSHO… Come to think of it, their 1/72 stuff wasn’t bad either… The Lancaster, Ploesti B-24D, PBY, & “Memphis Belle” are four that still stick in my mind… Gonna have to look for that Monogram book you mentioned…

I wrote Revell once too… This was back in the early 80’s though, and I’d just purchased their 1/32 F-104 and it was missing the entire clear sprue… I wrote a polite but-to-the-point letter to them and not only did get the parts requested, I got a catalog and a coupon good for any kit in that catalog… IIRC, I got the 1/32 FW-190D with it…

Heh… I’m into metal too… Classic case of my long hair not coverin’ my red neck… I’d throw-down with equal enthusiasm if’n someone insults Ozzy OR Gretchen Wilson in half a heartbeat, lol…

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Thanks for posting that, Bondoman… I know a Merrill family that’s around here… Their yougest son, Jim, was an AF Sergeant that mentioned that he had some relative (this conversation was a long time ago) in the Marauder… Wonder if’n that’s the same guy… Gonna give him a buzz and see if we got a “6th degree of Separation” here…