Right chaps, you really can believe
your eyes. There really was a B-52H that sported these natty stripes, no less
than 60-0057/SD-C of the 410th BW. Now before you conspiracy theorists or
crop-circle 'The Aliens' are here nutters get carried away speculating about
B-52's operating on and about 6th June 1944 or that perhaps Mr McDonald has
flipped his lid, these stripes were no more than a commemorative scheme for the
1981 IAT Greenham common airshow.
I came across a couple of photos of
said scheme whilst doing a spot of research on airliners.net, namely trying to
figure which way round part 38 went, as it was difficult to figure from the
appalling kit instructions. Of course, having spotted the scheme, I was
immediately smitten, and had to have a go at recreating it.
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images below to see larger images
Further delving produced 5
photos of the aircraft, just enough for me to figure out the camouflage
patterns on the sides of the beast. A plea to an online forum netted small
diagrams of the top of the aircraft. However, they didn't quite marry up
with the aircraft in the various photos I had. Then I noticed that
the patterns applied to the aircraft all differed slightly, and had the
distinct feel of being applied in the field. Some were quite crude,
looking very rough and ready. However, I soldiered on and managed
something that looked quite like the scheme sported by the afore mentioned
aircraft.
The kit itself is not up to the
recent 1/144th offerings from Revell. Detail was reasonable, but fit was
quite poor. I had fair amount of problems aligning the long thin fuselage (which
was practically devoid of locating pins) and ended up with a step that took ages
to eliminate. There were large gaps where the pylons joined with both the
wings and nacelles, while filling and cleaning the wing joins was a trial and
tribulation. Oh, I did manage to get all the wheels touching the ground at
the same time.
Painting the beastie caused no end of problems. The normally reliable Halfords
black paint ran and crept under the masking tape onto the white! I also had a
crack at Vallejo Model Air paints. These, according to the blurp on
Vallejo's web site, would dry the instant the paint hit the model when sprayed.
My Aunt Fanny's backside they did. I spent ages cleaning up where the
paint had bled under the masking tape. To cap it all I applied Revell's
matt varnish too thickly as it kept forming little droplets on the model.
However, it does give the paint work that worn, faded grubby look, like it had
been rained on and spent a lot of time in the sun. Oh, the unit markings
are completely ficticious. No one produced markings for the actual unit, and I
didn't have the means or inclination to produce my own.
This model features in the December 2009 issue of Scale Aviation Modelling.
Angus McDonald
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images below to see larger images
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