XB-51 Martin Banana Jet

Modeling Subjects Aircraft
1

It’s a great time to be a modeler, especially if you like unusual subjects. Mikro-Mir recently released a Martin XB-51, in 1/72 scale:

Decals are provided for the two prototypes that were built:

The kit is injected plastic of the limited run variety:

A sheet of PE is provided, loaded with lots of tiny parts. A lot of it are fins for the HVAR rockets and bombs.

A canopy masking sheet is also provided.

The rotary bomb bay can be built in the open position, which is where either the rockets or bombs can be mounted.

The XB-51 is one of my favorite “X-Bombers”, and so I thought I’d share some trivia regarding the model:

  • At least one of the prototypes was fitted with a bullet fairing on the t-tail during trials. The kit does not provide parts for this.

  • The small outrigger wheels do not touch the ground when the aircraft is sitting perfectly level. During taxiing, the XB-51 tottered about like a drunkard trying to get home.

  • The wings had variable incidence to cope with the landing characteristics of the bicycle main gear (i.e. no flare landings like the B-52). Thus there was a slight but noteceable gap between the wings and fuselage.

  • The kit wings are provided in the clean configuration. You’ll have to modify the parts to extend the flaps and slats - but that would make an ugly airplane even uglier! Also note that the wing tips had air bleed slots, which Mikro-Mir represented as small “teeth”. Don’t sand those off!

  • The two fuselage mounted engine nacelles had horizontal split cowls with piano hinges. The separation lines extended into the intakes, so there should be seam lines in there! The nacelles are split horizontally, with separate pylons.

  • The fighter-style canopy did not hinge. It was fixed in place and only blew off during crew ejection.

  • The centrally mounted engine in the back of the fuselage had a rotating fairing to close off the dorsal intake when cruising. The kit does not offer this option, although it would be fairly easy to make one. The kit does include a full length intake, so this should please the dental mirror crowd.

  • Some know the XB-51 as the XF-120 Gilmore Fighter from the movie “Into the Unkown”. You’ll have to wait for aftermarket decals for this scheme, as the decal sheet does not include these spurrious markings.

2

Hi,

It would be interesting to see this kit built up. It has to be one of the odder planes that I’ve seen in a while.

Regards

Pat

3

Never seen that one. Why Banana? Couldn’t find a reference.

4

The USAF had a number of odd looking prototypes in the late 1940s and 1950s, like the XB-35/YB-49, XB-46, XB-48, XF-96, etc. The XB-51 has to be one of the oddest looking of the lot.

I’ll try to put this one on the front burner, as I really love the suject. Time to check the Alclad levels in the paint cabinet…

5

Wow, I’ll have to get one.

I have fond memories of a great airshow experience. At a Detroit in the early 50s, the annoucer said, a xb-51 would do a flyby as the last act of the AF portion of the show.

Looking to the direction the flybys were coming from, nothing was seen at first, but then some smoke appearef just above the treeline. The flybys were supposed tobe flown at 300-500 feet, but I estimated this pass was at about 50 ft. As it flew by, the background around the nose was distorded. After the flyby the pilot ullrd up into a vertical climbout. The announcer had had said the pilot was Chuck Yeager, who was well known at the time.

6

Because when I first saw the fuselage halves, I immediately thought

BANANAAAAAAA!!!

7

This should be interesting.

…WHO ARE THOSE OTHER TWO GUYS.

8

9

So I started putting the banana jet together. As usual, we start at the cockpit and wheel wells.

I decided to glue the plastic parts together first, then add the PE instrument panels.

Being a limited run kit, fit is entirely the responsibility of the builder. But at least Modelsvit now provides somewhat soft locators to suggest where the important parts go.

A nice option is the deployed bomb bay.

Martin invented the clever rotary bomb bay as a way to cut drag when the bombs came out, plus it eliminated loose ordnance “floating” like in conventional bomb bays. Nowadays this phenomena is eliminated by using spoilers ahead of the bay. Although the XB-51 didn’t get mass produced, the bomb bay concept was incorporated into the B-57.

The kit includes two really big bombs with beautiful PE fins, but I might want to pack in smaller 500 lb bombs. I’ll see if I can source some nice resin ones that aren’t too fussy to put together.