Ya know what I need a good shot of? The chemical toilet that was just aft of the rear crew access door.
Ya know what puzzles me? at 25-30.000ft, just how was a crewman supposed to take a whizz or a dump with all of that gear on, not to mention it was 40 below at altitude[:O]
Jeebus,
I would bet the chemical toilets were only on the later fully enclosed and “heated” waist areas of the later “G’s”. Then it might have only been heated to the +20’s. Heh, heh!
Ray,
Great your Dad is still with us! It will be 20 years this Oct. since my Dad passed, still miss him. Glad you enjoyed the pictures.
Consider the alternative…
But since you brought it up, it ian’t all that difficult to drop trou in a B-17… And before you ask, yeah, you sit down for both “operations”… As for temps, ever use an outhouse in a Minnesota winter? Same thing…
BTW, aircrew pre-mission diets were high-protein/low-residue, usually steak & eggs (not the kind of steak you’d actually PAY for though…) Aircrews had real problems with certain foods and the gas-producing qualities of those foods in un-pressurized high-alt environments…
But that’s another thread…
It’s almost exactly like the Elsan in the Lanc here, but a bit shorter:
I added a couple of pieces of stretched sprue to a styrene rod to make the one in my Fort in order to “Americanize” it… This’s a WIP shot…
I’ve got one stored away for my Revell B-17F, that I made from a sprue injection gate, it’s just about the right diameter, just drilled a hole in the center, and sanded the top to shape.
I have built three 1/48 B-17 kits in my modeling career, an F, an E and a G but all were done before the release of the True Details interior sets. When these sets first came out I thought it was a great idea but now that I am playing with them in actual construction I am coming to the conclusion that I was better off without them. I think I can build better, cleaner, more accurate details from scratch with a lot less effort than that required to make the TD sets work. I say this after installing the waist set and trying to figure out how the cockpit set could fit into the fuselage. More to come on that later, for now here is what the waist section looks like right now.
Good to hear that from another modeler… Speaking just for m’self, nothing can beat the feeling of finished scratch-build… Plus, it’s all yours…
I have not done an outhouse in a Minnesota winter but I have done one in a Montana winter above 5000 feet – that’ll wake ya up in the morning. Also kinda makes you glad flesh does not flash freeze to wood [:-^]
I agree 100%. I have all the TD stuff for my B-17, and maybe the only thing I’m going to use is the cockpit floor. MAYBE. Eduards PE is much better and offers more in my opinion.
Nice job on the YB-40. Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Rob, it’s funny but I am coming to the same conclusion, use the floor and scrap box the rest. Might be able to do something with the O2 tanks.
Rob and matt…if you guys arent gonna use the little detail bits in those sets, i’d happily take them off your hands, lol. I’d more than likely use them as templates to scratch my own. See my rant about these sets over on swanny’s forums, matt. Could each of you two do me a small favor? Just look in the cockpit set and see how many control column’s and yoke’s there are in your sets, mine only has one of each, someone else here said the same thing. I’m trying to figure that out, why the @%#* would they only put one of each of those parts in, two are needed!!!
True Details is owned by Squadron - it’s their own in-house brand so just call Squadron Mail Order and tell them you need parts. I have not looked at mine for yokes yet. Since I’ve already bought this thing I am determined to make it work. I’m guessing it was made for the G kit so that could account for some of the minor fit issues, we’ll know more when I try to put one in a G. Anyway, here is current progress on the cockpit. The only piece actually glued to the fuselage is the one sidewall.
I contacted True Details / Squadron about one of the parts being an unuseable short shot and I have yet to hear back from them. I’m sorry, but I’m not impressed with their stuff. The cockpit section only had one yoke, and you need to get the bombardier’s section for the other. I think the seat is the same way. Sorry. I’m not happy with it. Like I said…Eduards is much better for about the same money.
Cheers
I’ve had about five hours at the bench today and most of that has been test fitting and adjusting the TD cockpit floor assembly and aft cockpit bulkhead. Have the fit down pretty good now. When taking breaks from that I did manage to do one of the new cheek windows.
Now I need another picture, I need a good image of the top turret stand and support structure.
Swanny,
There are a couple shots of the top turrent structure in link of the post Jeaton made about B-17 and B-29 references. Probably not what you need, I’ll E-mail the one shot I have but it’s a close up of the “V” frame, ammo boxes, oxygen bottle and back strap.
Still working on the front office. Directly behind the copilot’s seat are two canisters on the bulkhead, the one to the outside is a hydraulic reservoir and is light gray from pics I’ve seen, what color is the other one supposed to be?
Swanny,
The pictures I’ve seen show them to be the same color. The one color picture I have, has them painted a dark, bluish green. This picture is of the IWM B-17G, ‘Mary Alice’. As a restoration, it’s probably suspect. But, on the other hand, most of the equipment and fittings in the cockpit were painted a dull dark green, so this might extend to the hydraulic tanks.
Also, the picture identifies the outboard canister as the hydraulid accumulator and the inboard canister, near the door, as the hydraulic reservoir.
HTH
Tony H.
Cool, thanks.