Background
A fantastic drawing by Gavin Snowdon
Those of you that have seen any of my meanderings on Facebook will know that I have been champing at the bit for the arrival of HKMs newest release the B-17G Flying Fortress. This will be my second build of an HKM kit for the magazine, my first being their lovely B-25 which I completed last year; but why all the excitement?
I recall 25th April 1982 so very well it was the day I graduated from the Royal Air Force College Cranwell as a Pilot Officer. Black Tuesday is the day that one is told whether you have graduated, been recoursed or as it was so pleasantly termed “Chopped”! Those of us that graduated after the initial relief and jubilation went off for some further leadership reinforcement in the guise of the feature film Twelve o’clock High featuring Gregory Peck. The film was focused on a B-17F Bomber Group based at RAF Archbury in Suffolk (fictional as far as I can tell) and the huge pressures they faced with early daylight bombing. The great thing about the film was that all the combat footage is real, albeit on occasion inappropriate as it seemingly has P-47’s attacking the B-17s!!! This aside, it is an evocative film and I still love it today.
I also think that the B-17 is one of the most beautiful aircraft ever to fly. Its grace and majesty is up there with the Lancaster. Just watching ‘Sally B’ at Duxford is always emotional and again a genuine inspiration for this build.
I have taken time to get some really exciting references and all of those I have chosen have their merits but the Haynes Book has an original photograph in there that sold this kit to me as it rekindled some childhood magic. That magic came from my first ever bomber model which was the Series 12 (I think) 1:72 scale B-17G ‘A bit o lace’. The box artwork is simply stunning and even today if I see it I just want to build it. The Haynes book has an original colour photograph of ‘A bit o Lace’ in it and my oh my what a battered thing she was! So with all this in mind as soon as I heard that HKM was releasing a B-17 I simply had to build it.
I thought when I first saw the box art for this kit that the decals included were for ‘A bit o Lace’. That may have been an error on my part though as the kit comes with decals for ‘Milk Run’ which was from the same Bomber Group and thus looked at distance the same as The ‘Lace’. I really wanted to build ‘A bit o lace’ though and I was delighted when Geoff gave me the kit that with it came the Kits World decals for this aircraft. I did, given my propensity for changing my mind also buy The Zotz range of decals and the half and half scheme also from Kits World, so I am really spoiled for choice now. The likelihood though is that mine will be Lace when she is finished.
The Plan
You might have glanced at some of my other builds in SMN and will know that I am used to building some ‘monster-size’ kits. The aforementioned 1:32 scale B-25, the 1:200 USS Arizona and the 1:72 scale Gato-Class submarine all spring to mind. This one though really is a monster. You can see from the photograph that this one is huge whatever direction one comes at it. Consequently I plan to take a modular approach to the build, which to be fair is exactly the approach that HKM suggests in the instructions.
I will build, paint, decal and weather the fuselage tail and tail-planes completely then move onto the wings engines and main undercarriage port and starboard and take the same approach with them. A dry fit suggests that the wings can be clicked on and off without too much gap at the root but this is without paint and I don’t want any gaps so I will see how this goes. For sure if the wings can be detached it means transportation may be easier but we shall see.
The other part of my plan was to wherever possible stick to the kit parts. The exception to this would be the guns which are poor in this scale and so epitomise the type that replacement was paramount. Second were the main wheels, which are huge and to me in the kit look a little undersize. I will be looking at this later in the build. The only other ‘extras’ I succumbed to was the Eduard Mask set which given the amount of glazing on the beast was to me mandatory. Finally, my experience with the decals in the HKM B-25 kit was that they were poor and these look little better. They lack most of the important stencils and besides I wanted to model ‘A Bit o Lace’ so I went to Kits World for both.
Given that I am choosing to paint a natural metal B-17, in a kit this large the finish has to be exemplary and I have to say that will be the biggest challenge this kit offers me and one that I will be focusing on the most. This will mean joins and seams have to be right as will the weathering. I think I did this with my F-100 and B-25 so will be following a similar technique with this build.
First Impressions
Yes size does matter and as I said this really is a beast so you will need to be exceptionally well organised building this one as it will be easy to trash most of your modelling area including glues and paints etc with even a small error in judgement handling this kit. I went a little extreme in that I bought brand new cutting mats and cleared both building and painting areas in my den for action. So far this has paid dividends!
The main thing to note I think when opening the box, size aside, is the proliferation of rivets on the kit. They are beautifully engraved and in scale and I believe accurate but for one thing: The rivets on a B-17 were round head not flush. Thus the aircraft looks wrong and it’s an irony but it makes you wish Monogram of the 1990s produced this one with all those lovely rivets! I am hoping some judicious pastel weathering will help disguise the issue but at this scale it ought to be right I think.