She doesn't really qualify

[Steve N]

Here's the ancient Revell "Memphis Belle" in 1/72 scale. This was a "retro" build four our club's "Golden Oldie" contest this month. I built at least a couple of them as a kid, and had been considering picking one up kit for the past few years just because of that fantastic Jack Leynnwood box art, and this gave me the perfect excuse. I found an original 1962 issue on Ebay for 28 bucks including postage. Interesingly, the current boxing of the exact same kit only costs about a dollar less at the LHS (it was probably only a dollar or so when new.)

By modern standards, the kit is straight out of the Triassic Period. Encrusted with rivets, zero interior detail, foot-thick trailing edges, and tons of nifty operating features. I did my best to build her with no modifications..I even left the grossly short gun barrels. I also tried to keep all the working features, including the retracting landing gear (a major selling point when I was a kid.) The only structural modification I made was to the windows above the cockpit and nose. The kit is molded with just rectangular depressions in the plastic, into which you're supposed to glue the clear parts. I opened the areas up to make them true windows. I also opened up the various intakes and exhausts, and drilled out the gun barrels.

I painted the underside with a spray-bomb of generic gray I found for $1.49 at Wal Mart (can you believe Model Master doesn't make Neutral Gray in a spray can?) The rest was painted with a brush. I used Humbrol Olive Drab (lightened a bit for the control surfaces) with blotches of some generic old Humbrol medium green. I even used the 49-year-old decals, which performed surprisingly well. They silvered a bit, and of course the colors are wrong..the mission marks and name should be in yellow, and the yellow of the serial number and fuselage codes should be a bit more orangy. The nose art is also about twice the size it should be. Since the girl was just printed as red on white, I painted in the flesh areas, and repainted the bathing suit blue on the left side.

As usual, the kit lay on my bench partly completed for months, and then I ended up rushing through the final week to make the deadline. It's probably the worst model I've build since high school, but at least it's done. It also won the contest.

I'd like to build the new Revell G to put beside it to show just how far model kit technology has come in the past half-century. Unfortunately the kit hasn't gotten over to this side of The Pond yet, and I don't know if I'd be able to finish it in time to be included in this group build. I've got a B-17C I'm building as an RAF Fortress I that I've been tinkering with for years, but it may not qualify, since I don't know if it's less than 25% done.

Cheers!

Steve

Edited January 17, 2011 by Steve N

[Prop Duster]

I think its a cool model. Good Job

Its usually good to see how far we have come in the intervening years

--we just dont always have to like it

[Kostucha]

That's pretty darn cool! I'm tossing a link up in the inspiration thread.

Cheers!

Mark.

[Steve N]

Thanks for the compliments, guys! I have to admit I have a soft spot for this kit. I used it to make countless raids deep into enemy territory in the backyard to bomb the ball bearing plants in the sandbox (sadly, flak and fighters often forced it down in mom's flowerbeds.) Although quite crude by today's standards, it was perfect for the audience for which it was intended; pre-teen boys whose dads and uncles fought in the war, and may have crewed bombers themselves. The proportions are actually fairly good..the only part of the kit that has always really bugged me is that rather strange windshield. I'm assuming the kit was molded with the cockpit and tail gunner's window frames integral to the fuselage to it could be assembled without paint and still look good.

SN

[richter111]

I think all the working features are what got many of us into modeling in the first place. When I was a kid, I built models becuase I loved airplanes, and they were the only way I could build something cool to play with.

My favorite hands down models as a kid

Revell 1/32 Corsair

Revell 1/32 Stuka

Monogram 1/48 B-17G

Those 3 models (and the monogram 1/32 armor series) kept me happy for hours on end.

Thanks for the look back, I always wanted the 1/72 B-17 with the nifty cool box art, but I was told it was too advanced for me!

[robtmelvin]

Great build on that prehistoric kit. Talk about a trip down memory lane. I wish I could remember how many times I built that kit as a kid (1960's vintage). Like you, I flew many missions on Gen. Frank Savage's wing, looking for bandits at 12 o'clock high, getting forced down in mom's flower bed.

The Belle is one of the kits I am really hot to do since coming over from the ship side. I had the honor of meeting Col. Morgan a number of years ago when the Belle was still at Mud Island. I was in Memphis one weekend and went to Mud Island to see the Belle and who was there but Col. Robert K. Morgan. Ran down to the gift shop and promptly got a poster which I got him to autograph. We talked for a while and he had flown into the airport in the small town in southeastern Kentucky I live in. A crusty old bird, but very congenial. Told me that he and two other surviving crew members, Jim Venaris, the co-pilot, and Cas Nastal, who few one mission as waist gunner, would be at an airshow just north of Memphis the next day. I stayed an extra day just so I could go up and get the autographs of Mr. Venaris and Mr. Nastal, along with Col. Morgan's. That poster now hangs proudly in my office. About three years ago I got a chance to fly in the Liberty Belle. Wow, what an experience!

With those experiences I have to do a B-17 build to display in my office along with the print with the autographs (that is where I display all my builds that will bear the light of day!). May have to do two, a F model (the Belle, or another ship?) and a G model in honor of the Liberty Bell. I'd love to get my hands on some 1/48th scale Liberty Belle decals!

Bob

[Kostucha]

Bob,

That is one awesome story!

Cheers,

Mark.

[robtmelvin]

Mark, an interesting follow up to that from the same visit. After getting a chance to speak with Col. Morgan I stayed at the Belle for a while, taking pictures and examining her as closely as I could. The way she was displayed at Mud Island let you get pretty close to her and allowed some very good views of her exterior and the nose compartment. I found myself in coversation with an older gentleman who, as it turned out, had been a B-17 pilot in '44-'45. I expressed my admiration for him and the other men who flew those big bombers, as well as my appreciation. He was clearly pleased that people remembered what he and his fellow veterans had done. But, he did comment that those who flew in '42 & '43 were mostly flying over occupied France. He stressed that many time he and his crew "flew all the way to Berlin". He clearly felt that he and his contemporaries had the harder job! I got the distinct impression that he thought Col. Morgan got a bit more glamor than was due.

Bob

[Kostucha]

I can see that. We still do that today (what was harder, my first tour or second one? The first one...) but those are arguments that'll continue on till the end of time.

Thank you for your input! I'm sure all of us who read it greatly appreciate it. Very, very unique and inspiring.

Cheers,

Mark.