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CD72068 - 1/72 B-45 Tornado


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Valom has just announced a 1/72 B-45 Tornado for later this year. Hopefully a RB-45C will not be far behind. Rest assured that there will be a Caracal sheet for it soon after the kits are actually released.

 

 

Edited by KursadA
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The Edwards jet, early and late 47th schemes, all-black RB-45C, other RB-45's will all be there on the sheet. My kit is on its way from Blighty  and I will let you know  when I have some artwork to share.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Some news - it now looks like there is enough subject material for separate B-45 and RB-45 sheets, and I will announce a RB-45 sheet soon.

I am almost done with the design of the B-45 sheet. Please note that while the Valom kit is very nice, the decal sheet has a few serious shortcomings. The national insignia are incorrect in shape and dimension, the big serial numbers on the tail are too anemic and tall; most likely having been based on the markings on one of the three surviving museum examples.  My decal sheet will correct all of these and provide period-accurate markings.

 

This one will not make the June releases; so it will be coming in August after the vacation. I trust you can wait to finish your Valom kits until then.

 

cd72068promo.jpg

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16 hours ago, KursadA said:

This one will not make the June releases; so it will be coming in August after the vacation. I trust you can wait to finish your Valom kits until then.

 

LOL. I'll be lucky if I build my B-45 within the next five years! So take yer time.

 

Steven Brown
Scale Model Soup

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The B-45 sheet will have three options from the 47th BW : all three squadrons (84th, 85th and 86th) flying from Wethersfield, Sculthorpe and Alconbury are represented. In the end, the choice of operational B-45A/C units were limited and I chose to go with the most important operating unit.

 

I believe this sheet corrects several glaring errors in the kit sheet (insignia incorrect both in shape and dimension, oversized tail numbers, incorrect "USAF" marking, no stencils etc.); and would improve your B-45 build drastically. The Valom offering is a very nice kit in all other respects.

 

I will announce a RB-45 sheet shortly - that one will allow more color and variation.

 

cd72068draft.jpg cd72068bdraft.jpg

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I'm going to place the kit decals on my FSM review model VERY LIGHTLY so I can lift them off with tape after the photo shoot. We always use the kit decals on the review models so we can evaluate them as well. After the photo shoot, I can fix with better decals from Caracal!

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Thanks, Paul! I would appreciate it if you could mention that there is an alternative to the kit decals.

 

In case anyone is wondering, the "USAF" markings with rounded edges are the markings that I will recommend to be used. I am confident that this style is what North American had applied at the factory; and all the photographic evidence suggests that this style was used until the last few years of B-45's service life.  I don't know the story behind this particular style or whether it was used on other types; but I sure would like to find out.  

 

I have included "regular" USAF markings with 45-deg corners in case you would like to build a later example, or if you think you can not convince the judge.

Edited by KursadA
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38 minutes ago, Tomcat Trebor said:

Any chances of adding a corrected sheet of national insignias for all the aircraft on the sheet ?

 

There was enough space for only one set of national insignia, sorry. The sheet is intended to build one of the options; like pretty much all of my sets. 

Edited by KursadA
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I'm not looking at photos, but I believe the rounded letter font was peculiar to North American products, the F-86 Sabre in particular. It is also seen on some F-82 Twin Mustangs and some early F-100s in the late '40s - early '50s time period. I believe T Lai produced a downloadable computer font for this style lettering. He's the guy who brought us "Amarillo" (USAF) font and the "Long Beach" (US Navy) font. That was some time ago, and I don't know if that is still an active source.

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  • 2 months later...

The decals are here, and I will enable preorders tonight. Just another reminder that the kit decals are very inaccurate - even if you can live with those incorrect national insignia or can replace them, you really can not do much about the incorrectly shaped and dimensioned tail numbers which were clearly based on photos of the museum aircraft. The markings on CD72068 were designed from period photos of operational aircraft.

 

b45a01.jpg

 

b45a02.jpg

 

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