Boeing YRB-29K

[b29r]

This build was started long ago for a group build on another site.  It failed the deadline, and has been languishing more or less ever since.  Now and again she gets taken off of her hook and worked on a bit.  This is the current state of play.  The concept was for an improved recon bird in the early postwar period.  Trying to get a few lumps and bumps and recon kinda stuff placed here and there.  It's to be a USAF bird, but I'm not really to sure when the orange panels for service test aircraft came into being.  But hey, it's a what-if after all! 

Sooooo . . . . . I need to keep working on the backstory, and need to keep sticking parts onto this critter.  It's Airfix anyway, so that always means a good time .  Recently came across Mr. Chronic's fine Cuban machine, so that inspired me a bit to get some stuff moving on this one.





Hope to get some more done on her fairly soon.

Best, Kem

[TheChronicOne]

    Looks killer!

[sandiego89]

The colors are great! Curious about the fairing between the butterfly tails?

[TheChronicOne]

That whole area caught my eye, too... looks really neat. Looks "period" for sure, like 1950's American automobile type of styling or something.

[Tophe]

The V-tail changes completely her silhouette! Great!

[scooter]

The Old Dog's grandfather?

[PR19_Kit]

The Old Dog's grandfather?

My thoughts exactly. 

[Gondor]

Good job on an Airfix kit although the under wing tanks make me think that its an Academy kit

Gondor

[zenrat]

She's looking good.

[NARSES2]

Does look very nice.

I suppose that boom between the butterfly tails could be a refueling boom to give her a dual role ?

[b29r]

Thanks guys!  It feels a bit good to get some progress in, after quite a bit of hibernation.  Firstly though, some confessions:

1.  I'm a lazy modeler
2.  I'm no scratchbuilder
3.  My spares box rivals Old Mother Hubbards cupboard
4.  I never let facts confuse me

Ok, then, yes this old Airfix is Grandfather's Old Dog Shep.  And let's just say the engineering leaves a bit to be desired.  So the angle of the dangle of the main LG led me to adopt the B-47 style tandem arrangement.  The Academy kit would have been much nicer to accommodate the V tail arrangement, but I kinda hated to carve that one up when an Airfix kit was close at hand.  I do think that Airfix captured the profiles and style of the B-29 much better than Academy did, in my view.

The eagle-eyed of you spotted that conflagration at the rear fuselage.  After cutting off the vertical fin, I was left of course with a gaping hole, with no clear idea how to close it up (#2 above).  So I scrounged up a drop tank of roughly the right size and glued it in    This is the space needed for the ECM suite stuff.  The former tail gunners station was retained to house the radar unit for the remote tail guns.  So the whole thing looks a bit absurd (#1,#2, & #4 above).
And honestly the thought of a refueling role never occurred to me until Mr. Narses2 mentioned it just now  .  Although I am planning to add a refueling probe up front for those loooooong recon missions.

Earlier I had purchased an Airmodel Vac conversion set to turn the Airfix B-29 into a B-50, so the wing tanks came from that set.  If any of you has successfully made that conversion, I would sure be interested in seeing it  .

Thank you for your interest and kind remarks.

Best, Kem