test piccies…B17

Gawd – I thought you’d done a close-up on an Airfix Fortress! They used to employ a grave-digger to excavate the panel lines (when those lines weren’t raised, of course)!

Flood.™

A little snooping on the web shows that this B-17G was part of the 406th “Night Leaflet Squadron”. Sounds like the payload was a little different than that of most B-17s, but it sure explains the colour.

A little more info and some pictures can be found at: http://www.carpetbaggerops.org

Sounds like a little known aspect of the war, and an interesting story to tell.

The site seems to have some bugs and bad links. This page has a picture of the aircraft in question, with the nose art:

http://www.carpetbaggerops.org/406thNLS/406thNLS-TomsPhotos.html

Looks like the lady had a bikini on back then. Must have lost it somewhere!!

Charles

The scale is 1/48…its big, very big, and chuffin heavy… about 3 bags of sugar… as well !. I have another in the same scale but an earlier version (no chin turret), but in RAF camo colours (green/brown).

The models are by Franklin Mint and are very well built. The cockpit glazing can be lifted off to show a fully detailed inside

The black one caught my eye cos of the name ‘Tondalayo’. I have a book called ‘Fortress Down’ which is written by one of the original crew, a guy called Elmer Bendinger (I think the surname is correct as at the moment I have loaned the booked to someone to read) of Tondalayo, so I just had to have the model to go with the book. The book itself holds some startling remarks that make you think very hard about what the crews went through. Its a small paperback, look out for a copy in the aerojumbles, its a brilliant read !.

And I havent seen an all black Fort before either.

the green Fort is one from a boxed set by Corgi and is 1/72 scale

Did you paint the nose art yourself, or are those decals?

I’ve never seen a black B-17 before. What’s the story with the markings?

Nice detailing – what’s the scale?