B-24J "The Dragon and His Tail"

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by peter taft

Have you seen your work ?.......

I'd never really thought about this all that much, but I live in a very small town, < 1500 residents, and no one living here has ever seen my models.

I've never seen an actual card model built by anyone else, except my dad.

I've seen the work that you guys post on this, and a couple of other sites, and I must admit, I think most of it looks better than mine.

Maybe I really haven't looked at my work that closely.

Thanks Peter

[Swampfox]

Getting close!!

When getting ready to attach the wings, I realized that I had not put enough airfoil into the top of both wings. I tried to add more by carefully rolling them on a dowel, but I just couldn't get enough to show. The airfoil guide outline on the fuselage was still visible.

So, I took a paper towel, folded it several times and placed it on/in the dihedral guide that was already in place.
This helped expand the wing thickness just enough to work perfectly!!

This shows the starboard wing glued in place, the cowling and props are not yet glued in place.
I was concerned about there still not being enough weight at the front of the plane, to prevent tail dragging, and wanted to be able to add more B-B's into the cowls if necessary.

I glued the 2nd wing in same way. It turned out that I needed to add 1 more B-B to the inside of the cowl, just to make sure!!

[Don Boose]

Wow! Looks like a Liberator!

Don

[John Dell]

The Swedish Fortress book has a good bit of information on the first commercial trans-Atlantic flight by a Swedish airliner. The author states he could not find any positive reason why the B-17 was chosen over the B-24 other then the fact that when the idea was being considered, more B-17s were available. One sad thing the book mentions is that when the B-17s (F-17 in Swedish service) were being retired, they offered one to the Stockholm Technical Museum. They declined due to lack of display space! Imagine if they would of had the fore sight to stash one away into a warehouse or something. There is also a chapter dealing with the return and restoration of "Shoo, Shoo, Shoo Baby".

There are a couple of other books I can recommend. A few years ago Squadron released a two volumes set titled "Strangers in a Strange Land" by Hans-Heiri Stapfer. Volume one is about aircraft capture by the Germans. It was in this book that I first learned about B-24H "Sunshine". Volume two subtitled "Escape to Neutrality" deals with U.S. planes that landed in Switzerland during the war. They were mostly B-17s, B-24s and P-51s. The Swedish markings on the B-17s and B-24s were pretty sharp. I can see myself doing models of some of them in the future.

I also got the new Aviation Heritage catalog last night and there is a new B-17 book that is laid out like one of those Chilton car repair books. There was also an addition to Osprey's aircraft unit books. This one is on the B-24 units operating out of China and India. I wish they would expand the B-17 series to include Fortresses in RAF service (B-24s too). I'll have to pick both of those up.

I have to let all of you B-24 lovers out there know that I will be doing more B-24s in the future as well as up-dating the B-24Ds I did a few years ago. I want to get the main design work on the various B-17 models done first.

[ghshinn]

That paper towel solution was ingenious, to say the least. I couldn't tell from the picture, but did it "puff" the airfoil sufficiently to hide the airfoil guide lines?

Garland

[John Dell]

"The Swedish markings on the B-17s and B-24s were pretty sharp. I can see myself doing models of some of them in the future."

I meant to type "Swiss" markings. Though the Swedish B-17s were handsome aircraft and will be the subject of future models.

[willygoat]

If my memory serves me correctly, a gentleman from my hometown was the navigator on "Shoo Shoo Shoo Baby". Granted, there were many planes with that same name from what I've found.

[Swampfox]

Originally Posted by ghshinn

That paper towel solution was ingenious, to say the least. I couldn't tell from the picture, but did it "puff" the airfoil sufficiently to hide the airfoil guide lines?

Garland

Yes, it worked just fine. If it hadn't, I was planning on adding another sheet of paper towel and fold it a little tighter, but no need.

Here is a different angle of what it looked like before I slid the wing into position.
This way you can see that I passed the paper towel all the way through the fuselage.

[Swampfox]

I hope everyone enjoyed this build as much as I did. If anyone has any additional question please feel free to ask on this thread, or PM me if you'd rather.

Thank you all for your interest, comments and very nice compliments.

Again, a big thanks to John Dell, cardmodel designer extraordinair. I'll always be interested to see what your up to next. Thanks for letting me take part in this one.......

Here are pictures of the final, completed model.









A couple as it flew overhead--





The Damsel in distress--



From my backyard runway--

[Leif Ohlsson]

What a singularly beautifully built & photographed model. Proud to be counted among your friends.

Leif