S&p b747 sofia

**dhanners** · #1 09-17-2014, 02:42 AM

Some weeks ago, I mentioned on the plane-a-day thread that if Bruno were doing a B747, how about the 747SP used for the Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, operated by NASA and the DLR.

So when I noticed the plane in the download section the other day, I figured I should take a crack at it since I'm the one who requested it. I'm not big on 1/300 scale (hey, my eyes aren't getting any better) but I thought it might be fun to try.

It went together pretty well. No major (or even minor, for that matter) fit problems.

I made a few tweaks. I glued a small piece of Bristol board to the inside of the wing/fuselage fillet to insure the bottom would be flat. I cut parts from an extra sheet of kit parts to double up the area around the telescope opening since it looks like a hump on the real plane. I cut off the bullet-shaped pieces on the wing trailing edges -- representing the flap-track fairings -- because I couldn't find any photos of SOFIA or 747SPs that have them.

Were I to do it over, I would've figured out some way to open up the telescope bay. I don't think it would be that hard to do.

And since I'm posting this from my iPad, I can only upload one photo per post....