Ye Olde Pub-B-17F, 1/48

 

You may know the story of how Franz Stigler escorted Charlie Browns severely wounded Fortress to the Channel, but if not Google it and read up. It’s an amazing story kept secret for 75 years. 

I was commissioned to build an old Revell kit. I was provided with not only the model kit, but aircraft specific decals and an 8 man B-17 crew! The challenge was to destroy the model as I built it. All I had was various art work to go by to emulate the actual damage. The techniques used were thought out by me and will be documented here as best I can. 

I will include as many work photos as I can and explain my process where I think necessary. 

        The first thing I did was bust the nose canopy. I   drilled a few holes and used my nippers to break out pieces. After a successful bomb run over Bremen, Dec. 20, 1943, the “Pub” was set upon by enemy fighters, sustained significant damage including the loss of engine  2 and damage to others requiring feathering, and had to drop out of formation. I’m sure lieutenant Brown thought they were goners, but while members of the crew were injured only the tail gunner did not respond (KIA).

The floor required some DIY,  so I used waste plastic to create throttle controls.

After adding the yokes, and painting and installing the seats and pilot and co-pilot I also added some extras on the bulkhead.

Next came painting the Bombardier and Norden bombsight on the forward deck. I eventually added some “red” to his leg. After all the canopy in front of him was smashed. The tail gunner was not so lucky.

With the destruction anticipated I sprayed the entire aircraft exterior with Testors Diamond Mist!

I built the Bendix turret, but added the gunner platform using my go to, wine bottle foil. 

I have installed the windows and turret to the painted upper canopy structure. This piece fits nicely atop the fuselage and is not glued in place so that the interior of the cockpit can be shown!

In this old Revell kit the Sperry ball turret is molded on the clear sprue same as the Bendix so I had to paint the whole thing. Getting the bridge piece to line up with the receiving lugs on the fuselage interior was a bugger when trying to close it up!

I had a gunner in the crew so I painted him up and attached the 50cal to him. I used foil later for ammo and attached to the gun receiver(s). This will show up later on.

Here is the crew I had all painted. Note the lower left, I have the radio man treating the other, injured waist gunner.

The destruction commences with drilling and nipping and scraping. As documented the port tail/stabilizer were nearly, entirely shot away. I just had to chop it off and insert foil for damaged and torn ribs/spars.

I added some foil and wire in areas of the fuselage that might show up in the bullet riddled sections.

As an observer suggested, some shredded linen would have looked better on the rudder. Hindsight for me, oh well😬 Hey, this my first major destruction effort.

Were not well detailed, so I painted as best I could. More on the props later.

I had to make sure everything fit and was positioned for viewing before attempting fuselage closure. Notice the ammo attached to the starboard nose gun.

I jumped ahead here so that you can see the ammo belt of the Starboard waist gunner.

After spraying on the olive coat, I had to start application of decals so I could “shoot” holes in them!!!

The only significant change I had to make in the kit was dissecting the landing gear for the in-flight position. The kit is for extended gear/non-retractible, so I had to modify the opening and cut apart the gear struts to create the gear retracted in flight.

Here is the top observation window with foil added for framing to be inserted into the opening - bullet smashed, of course.

Time for some flak damage. Holes were drilled and pieces clipped away and foil overlayed, then snipped. I had to make it look like shells were coming through the wing from bottom to top!!

With the crew fixed in place and the fuselage closed, I could take some close ups of the crew through the damage.

  Now back to the props! Photoetch “Problur” was supplied. Once again with no experience I did my best to figure it out. They came on a PE sheet and the individual blades had to be cut out. The blades on the kit props had to be cut off the hub, the hub creased at the blade root using my xacto saw blade (at the blade angle) and the PE blades glued individually to the hub. Only the dead engine no. 2 rendered its prop not turning. After that, dry brush was employed so as not to clog the spaces in the PE blade.

Underside and topside! Now for a few final shots!

Here is a shot of the bf 109 for Franz Stigler, wheels up.

I built a Tamiya bf 109 with crew and more on the tarmac ready to take after the Ye Olde Pub, but that will be a separate post!