B-17 Flying Fortress

[Swampfox]

John usually makes his models available on ecardmodels.com

I'm fairly sure these will be no different. He has many other releases there, for example check these out:

Search results for: 'john dell'



SFX

[kubeksus]

Thank you. I will be waiting then for the release.
Kuba

[John Dell]

Swampfox is correct, these will be available on Ecardmodels.com.

[John Dell]

Here is the latest progress on the bomb bay doors.

Here are the former ribs for the bomb bay doors in place.


The completed door and fairing in position. The fit was pretty good. I had one area where I got slight “kink”. I’ll see if I get the same thing when I assemble the other side. I’ll have to come up with something to fill the gap between the fuselage and fairing at the corners. Now that I know this is workable I’ll do the final interior artwork (what is there now is just a rough outline) and add the cat walk and bomb racks.



A cross section of the bomb bay door.


Here is the top of the wing with the fairing attached. These fairings can be a real pain but this one seems to be working out rather well. Once again we’ll see how the other side goes together. I first have to make some tweaks and corrections.


Next up, engine nacelles.

[nikischutt]

Beautiful work John.

Very keen on seeing the finished product.

Niki

[airdave]

Did the US ever do a "winter" camo?
I think it looks good in white!

Fairing problems john?
haha
Is your wing fairing one piece...with small cuts at the top?
Seems alright to me.
No worse than any other I have seen.
I think we've had this conversation before. lol

[John Dell]

Thanks Dave, I think we did commiserate about wing fairings at some point. They are pesky things aren't they? Sometimes they work perfectly well on one side of the airplane, but when you go to put them on the other side its a complete mess. Yes they are one piece with slits (and a score line) at the top. Getting a uniform convex curve to the fairings seems to be the difficult trick with these things. The slits seem to help making the curve consistent on both sides. I'm not sure if it is the perfect solution but it seems to be a step in the right direction. As far as a white B-17, I think I can come up with something.

[thokamous]

awesome looking Bomb bay

[John Dell]

Thanks to all for all the kind input.

I made some progress on the engine nacelles over the weekend. The inboard nacelle was a challenge but I think I finally got it to be workable. I’m trying to keep this model simple to build.

I’ve been experimenting with the engine cowls. The early B-17s (the Y1B-17 to the B-17E) had narrow propellers. The B-17F introduced the use of wider paddle blade props. The wider prop blades required a change to the cowl to a flatter shape to accommodate the new prop. In the photos the outboard nacelle has the original design I used on the 307s, the in board nacelle has what I’ve been playing around with for the B-17F and G. I did a couple quick color tests and put them on an old Stratoliner test build. Do you think they look alright?

I still have some detail refinements to make to the nacelles as well as doing the turbo chargers and exhaust. I’m moving on to the tail wheel for now though as it is one of the final structural elements I have to do. Over Thanksgiving I want to get this test build finished so I can see how the model looks overall. Speaking of Thanksgiving, I hope all of you have a good one.

[Leif Ohlsson]

I don't know how the real thinner cowls looked, but what do you think yourself about the new version? The old one seems a bit smoother, less angular, doesn't it? - L.