The B-52 Stratofortress

[legion]

The Antonov 225 has the same effect when fully topped on fuel, depending on the load.

[cdavenport]

I've seen the Antonov up close. That thing is a beast! I just didn't think you could put that much aluminum and steel together and make it all go in one direction at the same time.

[smyfe]

Pete, beautiful looking Buff, but i'm in shock at the thought of you downscaling:p, i thought you only knew one way:D
What would you like to see designed?
Did you see this in another thread on here
Best wishes
Mick

[Wyvern]

Fuselage and cockpit section look good Pete! Any recent progress?

Wyvern

[lee4752]

When I first started this hobby I tried to make a BUFF and failed miserably. My problem was that I wanted to do an H (shorter vertical tail fin, 40" plug in the tail, and longer nose radome). I didn't have the needed skills at the time and still don't. If anyone wants to do an accessory kit for the FG BUFF and a repaint (my preference would be Memphis Belle IV), you have a customer. If you include open landing gear bays, bomb bay, and CSRL, you have a friend for life.

[bob martin]

Lookin good so far Pete I need to learn to downsize I'm runnin out of room:(

[Ashrunner]

Originally Posted by Texman

If you think one Buff taking off made alot of noise and smoke, try going way back, to the days of SAC, and aircraft on alert.
While at Carswell AFB, I can remember many "elephant walks" with KC-135s taking off, followed by 15 - 20 Buffs,
doing MITO (minimum interval take off), the sky black from engine smoke and water, the number 5 aircraft onward,
swaying to and fro, not so gracefully, from the turbulence of the preceding giants. It was quite a spectacle.

I was on TDY to a G model base which still had the old dirty non-fan jet engines on the BUFF. A couple of hours later, an ORI team landed and MITOs were the order of the day. I had seen H models do MITOs at Kincheloe, but the G models were absolutely spectacular...if condemnable these days from the Global Warming crowd. Like you said, after the fifth aircraft, each following bird disappeared into a wall of black smoke. When the H models would do a MITO run, there were a lot of blackish trails in the air leading off in the direction each aircraft flew, but it was nothing like what the G models produced.

A couple of years ago, I began a thread in a forum in a galaxy far, far away called Buffing the BUFF. Since that time I have had a number of drive crashes and a few other problems. However, the project is still going and I have completed my resign of the fuselage section. I have (with the help of NOBI and Gil) got the nose of the GPM B-52 to look proper, and have gotten the tail gun section to look correct. Those two areas were my biggest problems with the GPM model. The nose of their design is more like that of the G and H models, while the tail gun section was extended by about as much as was added to the later model BUFFs.

Once the flight surfaces are finished (As I redesign the GPM kit, I'm also reducing it to 1:100 scale), I'll be repainting it to look like a B-52D, which was flown by a crew from Kincheloe and shot down on Dec. 26, 1972. I knew several members of the crew of Ebony 02 (its call sign on that flight) and want to honor the two who died when the SAM took out the aircraft. I recently found out that a static display of a D model repainted to resemble Ebony 02 was dedicated at Whiteman AFB, Missouri. The story can be seen here.

The day the surviving crew returned Kincheloe, I was on the tarmac with my big yellow fuel truck waiting as people who a couple of weeks earlier, were POWs, got off a VC-135 and were greeted by a variety of dignitaries. As I stood by my truck, one of the crew members who knew me, noticed me, tapped my other friend on the arm and pointed me out. They both casually saluted me and I returned their acknowledgement with one of the sharpest salutes I ever produced...and did it with tears in my eyes.

Someday I'll finish it, and hopefully by then, Ken will have completed his G model Desert Storm version which I can repaint and remake into B-52H 0028 which is another war story. 8v)

Pete...enjoy building the FG BUFF. Big or small, it's still one of the greatest aircraft ever designed.

[2Kamser]

besides being a nice and good loking (and small) build, i'm amazed that this thread has generated 3 pages of posts just in one day :D
i really love this site, sometimes it is more interesting reading posts and find tips ideas inspiration from all of you guys than it actually is building the models
like i would like to this one in scale to fit Ken's X-15, or scale his model to fit this one.
very good build Peter i envy your skill
/Håkan

[willygoat]

The FG B-52 mother ship (the one I put a pic up of) comes with an X-15. I built it too.

[peter taft]

Oh a big WOW to you guys for all this input...I really enjoy all the feedback and advice. I am loving that 52 that Willygoat put here, i have a full book just on that one version - and one of my favourites too apart for the G. Thanks to all for the kind words and Ashrunner for that moving story also Mike for the calculator which i will try out later. Well, here's todays run of things - lots of tiny triangle pieces of paper in a pile - a strained thumb from holding tiny parts too long, but all worth it for the engines and pylons. More pictures soon