Recently, a question was put forth: 'You know that "one airplane" you see as a kid... whether it be at an airport, flying at an airshow, or in a movie? Remember how "cool" and "awesome" you thought it was?' For me, that airplane was the B-17. When I was about six, I was introduced to the B-17 through the TV show 12 O’clock High. Loved the show and fell in love with the plane. Over the years I read anything and everything that pertained to the Fortress. I even built a couple of B-17 kits, they didn't turn out, and then for a number of years I drifted from the hobby (but thats another story). And then in 1996 a modified kit version of the Fortress appeared. I picked it up and the stage was set.

The subject kit is the Promodeler B-17G Flying Fortress in 1/48 scale. It comes in a fairly sturdy, but oversized box with nice artwork of the 447th B.G. A Bit O' Lace. On opening the box we find around 180 parts, in a 'softish' light grey and clear, a fret of photo-etch parts, a decal sheet, and a pretty decent instruction manual. It should be noted that this kit depicts a later version of the B-17G, it has the Cheyenne tail turret. But not the staggered waist positions.

Before I started this kit, I had decided that I wanted to "go to town". I acquired several resin detail sets. All from Paragon, the bomb bay, prop govenors and wing intakes, crew hatches, from Hannants. . Resin main wheels came from True Deails. A fret of interior photo etch parts from Edward and decals from Super Scale. And then there is the good old spare parts box. The aircraft I had decided to do was nicknamed Shady Lady of the 601st B.S., 398th B.G., stationed in Nuthhampstead, England. The 'Lady' went down over Germany after at least thirty missions.

Construction starts with the tail wheel. The one supplied with the kit is really basic, so I took the tail wheel from the Revell B-17F, which looks much better, modified the bulkhead and the strut and set it aside. The bulkhead was interior green, the strut was a green-grey mix, and the tire was flat black. A note here: all the paint used on this kit were Testors and Model Master Enamels. Next step was the ball turret, a three piece affair. The machine guns were sandwiched between two clear parts. The turret glazing was masked off and sprayed silver. The guns were painted gunmetal.. The chin turret was next. My subject aircraft did not have the flash suppressors on the gun barrels so the were removed. The turret was assembled and painted grey. Gun barrels were again gunmetal.

Here, I skipped a few steps relating to the kit supplied photo etch and went straight to the seats. The basic seat was painted interior green, with a flat brown cushion and the molded in seat belts were picked out with flat white, greys and silver. When done, I thought they looked fairly convincing. Next step was the radio compartment, and it was here that the cutting started. The radio desk is an unconvincing 'blob' molded with the floor. This was removed and the space cleaned up. The radio room bulkheads have doors in them that that were cut out and replaced with sheet plastic, but in a partly open position. The bulkheads were then painted int. green, and the radios were picked out with shades of black, brown, white and a light drybrush with silver. The bulkheads were attached to the floor and a new desk was made. The new desk top was a navigators desk from an earlier effort, cut to size and painted flat brown to resemble wood grain. The edge was painted silver.

A diagonal brace came from something in the parts box that was modified, and we have a fair representation of the radio desk. There is a radio that sits on the corner of this desk, and this came from the Eduard photo etch and painted black. The seat was installed, having already been painted. The ball turret support structure was added and the assembly was set aside.

It was at this point that major surgery took place. The bomb doors were removed and the edges cleaned up. The engraved lines were used as a template, and when the Paragon bomb doors were dry fit they matched perfectly! It was here that I decided to cut out the doors in the cockpit bulkhead, the hatch in the floor between the pilot's seats, and the curtained door at the rear of the nose compartment. I also cut out the nose access hatch in the belly and the access hatch in the waist. Once again the kit engraving was used as a guide and the Paragon parts fit right on.

With the surgery done, it was time for more painting. Both sides of the fuselage were painted int. green, and while this was drying I moved on to the cockpit. The main instrument panel came from the Eduard photo etch along with acetate backing. The kit panel was used as a backer for this, after all the detail had been ground off. Cockpit side panels were painted interior green as was the floor. Various details were picked out in shades of black and red and silver. The pilots' seats were installed, already painted. From the parts box came oxygen tanks from a B-29. These were cut up as needed and installed behind the pilots seats and beneath the cockpit floor, after they were painted yellow. The aft cockpit bulkhead was painted interior green with black, red and brown details. Throttles and mixture levers were also added. The throttles were photo etch and the mixture levers came from the parts box. The next step is to paint and install a lot of small interior items. Things like ammo boxes, tail gunners seat, navigators table. I left out all the machine guns, my intention was to install them after painting and decalling. Some of the clear parts had to be installed at this point also. When the glue was dry they were given a coat of Mr. Masking Sol. and cleaned up. So far things had went well and the overall fit of the parts was pretty good.

The major subassemblies, being the cockpit and radio room were placed in the left fuselage half and dry fitting began. The flight deck portion fit quite well, it pretty much lined up with the front edge of the bomb bay. On the kit parts there is a lip extending past the rear cockpit bulkhead. This was trimmed away and cleaned up. The radio room has a lip in front of the bulkhead. This, too, was trimmed away and cleaned up. For some reason the radio room appeared to be mismatched with the rear edge of the bomb bay. No amount of 'tweeking' could fix the situation, and after a check to make sure no interior parts were forgotten, the two fuselage halves were dry fitted and it was actually pretty good. Liquid glue was run along the seams and the body was set aside to dry. When the glue dried I started fitting the bomb bay parts from the Paragon set. The detail on these parts was really crisp and defined. There are four filler pieces: a left and right to cover the interior of the wing roots, and bottom sections for the cockpit and radio room bulkheads. There is a catwalk and four bomb racks and two doors. All were painted zinc chromate and after drying they were installed. Again the fit was right on. Ten 500lb. bombs came from the parts box and after being installed, two outboard and three inboard to each side, the bomb bay looks quite full.

The main landing gear was next. If the instructions are followed, you end up with a 'squatter'. I blocked of the mounting holes for the main strut, which adds about 6mm to the height. It also makes for a fragile assembly. Brake lines were also added using a fine wire that was painted black. The completed assembly, minus wheels, were installed in the lower half of each wing.

The wing intakes from Paragon were cleaned up and painted black with a silver drybrushing and installed. The wings were glued together, and after drying the seams were tended to. There were gaps in the sides of all four nacelles that required a bit of filler. Each wing attaches by inserting a tab into a slot on the fuselage and sliding it forward. With a full bomb bay in place this no longer can be done. Most of the tab was removed and wing attached with epoxy on the tab and liquid glue in the joint. So far, all was well. There was a tiny gap in places, but a little bit of filler took care of it. The horizontal stabilizers were next. Each side was a two piece affair and the fit was not perfect, but not too bad. The top turret was assembled following the instructions and painted int. green. The turret body in this kit had a replication of the parts that the gunner stood on.

The engines are next. The kit parts had some flash on them, but it was cleaned up easily. The cylinders were steel color, crankcase was grey, Paragon prop governors were black The finished engine received a drybrushing of black. It looked pretty good. Cowlings and engines were attached to the wings. A few minor parts were attached to the fuselage, antenna fairing under the nose, and a nose probe. I chose to have all the clear parts installed prior to painting. These were all masked off using Mr. Masking Sol and the seams were cleaned up. All the remaining openings: bomb bay, turrets, wheel wells, access hatches, and waist windows were masked off and the entire kit was given a couple coats of silver, and set aside to dry. The props were painted up following kit instructions, except that the hubs were purple. The wheels and machine guns were painted and set aside to dry. A few days later, portions of the fin was masked of and painted semi gloss red. Each wingtip was also painted red as were the horizontal stabilizers. The entire kit was set aside to dry.

Before the masking could be removed, the anti-glare panels on the nose and each engine nacelle were painted olive drab. This was done very carefully with a minimum of masking. All the markings were now put on. Super Scale makes very good decals and these were no exception. They had good color and adhered well. They are also extremely thin and settled down nicely, but not blocking out surface detail. The framing for the waist windows were painted olive drab, and the chin turret was grey, keeping with the peculularities of Shady Lady. As she did not carry a radio room gun, none was installed. The two cheek guns were installed and the clear nose fixed in place. The turbochargers and exhaust were next. The waste gates were drilled out and they were given a coat of rusty brown. Some light exhaust staining followed and we were ready for the antennas.

A wartime B-17G carried more than its share of antennas (or so it seems). I installed all the ones that seemed to be unique to 'Shady Lady'. It seems there were several variations as to which navigational aids and radios were installed, so some research is needed. I quickly found out that there is very little information available on the electronics carried on the B-17G.

To finish up, the Promodeler kit is actually not bad considering its age. There was some flash, but it was easily cleaned up. The molding for the most part was fairly crisp but some of the panel lines sort of faded away but that was fixed easily. Since I did not use the kit decals, no comment there. While I did not check the dimensions of the kit, when I was done it looks pretty good with the one exception being the landing gear. I got many hours of enjoyment out of this kit.