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CD48092 - B-1B Lancer


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CD48092 will be a 1/48 sheet featuring several current/recent USAF B-1B markings, both from Dyess and Ellsworth (and quite possibly some of the test units). I have sent the stencilling sheet to be printed about two weeks ago, and should receive it soon. I am still working on the main sheet, but should be able to finish it in a few late night sessions while the rest of the industry is having fun at the Nats.

I am too busy preparing your preorders/orders to draw profiles right now, but this is what the stencil sheet looks like. I chose to depict the EXCM (chaff/flare) frangible door outlines as a decal, since these are hard to scribe. Hopefully it will look good on the model. The stencil sheet will be available separately.

The very prominent wing walkways are on a separate, all-black sheet.

Most likely coming as an August/September release.

cd48092stdraft2.jpg

Edited by KursadA
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I'm interested to see what you come up with.

I'd really, really like a GA ANG BONE too. I want my B-1 to be the Memphis Belle. I think the only choice in 1/48 is the long OOP Cutting Edge decals.

I'd rather buy a brand new sheet for $10-$20 than a 12 year old decal sheet for $50+.

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I sent you an email to the "info" address about B-1s...

Cheers, Hoops

Holy smokes - Hoops just sent me a bunch of photos of some very rarely photographed stencils on the underside; so I will need to redesign portion of the stencil sheet. Hopefully it is not too late to change the design - I just e-mailed Cartograf. Thanks for helping make this a much more complete offering.

Edited by KursadA
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Ooooh, B-1 stuff!!! I was an Ammo troop at Dyess for 4 years, so I saw a WHOLE lot of B-1 stuff. The chaff mods are open topped, so when a chaff stick is fired, the top on the stick is pushed off, and the chaff follows it out into the airstream. Half of the time, the chaff mods would have the little plastic squares that are glued over the top of the plastic grid to cover the tops of the chaff sticks, but they came off very easily. It was pretty common to have chaff mods go out on a jet, and come back with the little squares missing even though the chaff hadn't been expended. The flare mods on the B-1 aren't frangible. The flare mods actually have spring loaded doors that are split in half, and the flare pellet pushes out of the door. This takes a good bit of force, because the springs on the doors are pretty stout. Not sure how well any of this detail would show up on decals, but you would know way more about it than I would.

B-1 flare mod. 12 sticks per mod.

100_1609.jpg

B-1 chaff mod. 120 sticks of chaff per mod. To the very far left, you can see a mod that has the little squares glued on the grid. For some reason, I didn't take a picture of that mod.

100_1474.jpg

Edited by carlizle84
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Ooooh, B-1 stuff!!! I was an Ammo troop at Dyess for 4 years, so I saw a WHOLE lot of B-1 stuff. The chaff mods are open topped, so when a chaff stick is fired, the top on the stick is pushed off, and the chaff follows it out into the airstream.

...

This is great information, thanks. I looked into providing more detail for these modules; but I could not make sense of some of the photos I have seen. That detail photo of the chaff module is pure gold; I had looked everywhere when I was researching this last month.

Question: were the chaff and flare modules completely interchangeable, i.e. could a chaff or flare module go in any one of the 8 slots? I am looking at some photos, and I am pretty sure I see 8 frangible (or smooth??) doors there. On the other hand, I can see some flare modules on a few other photos.

The old Detail & Scale book has a drawing that seems to imply that the two front slots on each side were used for chaff modules, and the two rear were flare modules. I am willing to provide an alternate set of decals for this area that would depict deployed chaff modules, but I want to understand the configuration first.

This one seems to have three deployed flare modules in the rear slots:

excm1.jpg

Pretty sure these guys are sitting on what looks like smooth covers - maybe these are used when there is no chaff or flare needed (training etc.)?

excm2.jpg

This one seems to have two flare modules in the front slots?

excm3.jpg

Edited by KursadA
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Not being a B-1 expert myself, but based on experience with other aircraft I would posit the following:

It's a lot of extra work and precautions to have chaff and flare loaded, so they would not be loaded most of the time stateside. When testing, training or exercise reasons demand it, they would be loaded but not necessarily all buckets. That's were we'd see the smooth covers.

Mission aircraft overseas would obviously have the buckets loaded.

Hoops

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As far as I know, you could load 8 flare mods or 8 chaff mods, or any combination of. I never got on top of the jets while the loaders were doing their thing, but that seems correct. You are exactly right about the smooth covers. When they don't fly chaff or flare, they put those covers on to cover the ports.

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Here is the latest version of the stencilling sheet - I improved many elements and corrected the shape of the chaff/flare dispenser arrays. The refueling door details and guide lines are also much, much more accurate.

cd48092stdraft2.jpg

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Here is the latest version of the stencilling sheet - I improved many elements and corrected the shape of the chaff/flare dispenser arrays. The refueling door details and guide lines are also much, much more accurate.

cd48092stdraft2.jpg

Looks amazing! Definitely a must buy for me!

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Here is the latest version of the stencilling sheet - I improved many elements and corrected the shape of the chaff/flare dispenser arrays. The refueling door details and guide lines are also much, much more accurate.

cd48092stdraft2.jpg

It's great to see the improvements to the stencil sheet!

I'm looking forward to see which B-1s made the cut for the markings.

Cheers Kursad,

Hoops

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Why two extra national insignia?

No special reason - I wanted send the design back as soon as possible without missing the print deadline, and did not have the time to optimize the layout to eliminate an unsightly space there. Adding two extra national insignia solved the problem.

Edited by KursadA
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CD48092 will be a 1/48 sheet featuring several current/recent USAF B-1B markings, both from Dyess and Ellsworth (and quite possibly some of the test units). I have sent the stencilling sheet to be printed about two weeks ago, and should receive it soon. I am still working on the main sheet, but should be able to finish it in a few late night sessions while the rest of the industry is having fun at the Nats.

I am too busy preparing your preorders/orders to draw profiles right now, but this is what the stencil sheet looks like. I chose to depict the EXCM (chaff/flare) frangible door outlines as a decal, since these are hard to scribe. Hopefully it will look good on the model. The stencil sheet will be available separately.

The very prominent wing walkways are on a separate, all-black sheet.

Most likely coming as an August/September release.

cd48092stdraft2.jpg

Do we know which B-1Bs had flown in Syria operations? That will be really nice to have.

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I have at least one kit of this bad boy waiting to find new markings for it. I sold all my B-1B decals while back and I was kicking myself ever since. I hope we will see some current squadrons or at least colorful markings. Looks like you will be getting a lot of my funds between this and few other sheets :thumbsup:

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  • 2 weeks later...

I received an offer for some excellent references on older camouflaged B-1Bs, and will certainly consider a sheet for these later in the year. Some of the stencilling is fairly different (at least in color), so I may end up designing another stencilling sheet for these.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I received an offer for some excellent references on older camouflaged B-1Bs, and will certainly consider a sheet for these later in the year. Some of the stencilling is fairly different (at least in color), so I may end up designing another stencilling sheet for these.

Excellent - would really appreciate a camo sheet :)

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I received an offer for some excellent references on older camouflaged B-1Bs, and will certainly consider a sheet for these later in the year. Some of the stencilling is fairly different (at least in color), so I may end up designing another stencilling sheet for these.

Good news! I'll be wiating to buy one of these too.

The Revell kit actually lends itself much better to an early green/gray camo schemed bird.

Edited by dmk0210
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  • 4 weeks later...

Any news on this project??

Still working on the main sheet - it did not make it to the October deadline, but will be part of the next batch for sure.

The stenciling sheets are ready; having arrived in the last batch more than a month ago - they look great, and will really add a lot to the finished model. I might be able to offer a small number of them separately in the future.

b1bstencils1.jpg

b1bstencils2.jpg

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