1/48 Revell B-17E

Gallery Article by Mike Krahn on Jan 14 2019

 

      

This is my 1/48 B-17E which I converted from the Revell kit.  

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I scratch built the entire interior using various bits and pieces from my spare parts box along with plastic stock. I used a left over Bendix turret from an Accurate Miniatures B-25 and a new nose cone from 2Cmod. I modelled this aircraft based on still photos taken from documentary of the Battle of Midway made by Frank Capra. This aircraft belonged to the 72nd Bomb Squadron, 5th Bomb Group and featured a paint scheme that was applied at the Hawaiian Air Depot. The paint scheme was made up of any paints that were available at the time as a means to help camouflage the aircraft.

Anyone who has built this kit knows that the interior detail is nearly non-existent. The bombardier's compartment, cockpit, radio room, waist and tail gunner's positions were all scratch built. The available reference material for early B-17E's is very limited and I had to use information from later models of the B-17 to fill in the gaps. I used Quickboost machine gun barrels and Ultracast propellers to round out the details.

Mike Krahn

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Photos and text © by Mike Krahn