Clunkmeister

It looks like a couple of American Chevrolet truck cabs back to back

Harv, be ready for an interesting build. It's a very demanding kit with plenty of pitfalls for the unwary, but no worse than the P-38 you converted. The Aerocraft landing gear are an absolute MUST with this kit. The kit gear is weak and not up to the task, so spend the few dollars and get the gear from Britain. Other than that, if you want a semi tough but crazy rewarding build, build it mostly OOB. Yoy can busy up the pit with a few runs of lead wire, but other than that, just build it. People talk bad about Kitty Hawk kits, but properly built Kitty Hawk kits always seem to do VERY well at the Nats.

Thanks Carl. It looks like I’ll need to do a lot of scrathbuilding on the bottom of the upper deck. It’s extremely visible and is totally barren in the kit. The kit is missing a lot of small details around Borge the reader bomb Aimee and the visual bombardier. Roof texturing and padding, wiring, piping, switch boxes, and work lights.

Maniac? LOL. I meant Maverick, but the auto correct for once got it right.

So Maniac is flying F-18s now? I dunno man, the flying sequences are bound to be decent, but I hope they fixed throttles on the F-18s. Those Tomcats in the movie were rigged backwards.

Inspiring work, Cees. I’m enjoying this greatly.

Amazing work, Carl!

I have ZERO idea what I will do this when I’m finished with it. I’m building it, but as of now, I’m planning on displaying it at my office.

Army vs Navy game! The only time a Marine will ever admit that he’s he’s actually Navy.

Awesomeness, Smitty. You know she is in my thoughts and prayers everyday.

That’s looking great. I saw the pics when the barn in Texas was opened up, and you’ve nailed the look perfectly! a new barrel fixed my issues, btw. Back in business.

Now we must start thinking about fuselage prep. The fuselage interior is a straight up fiberglass layup. No gelcoat, no finishing at all, so I’ll look at pics of the originals again. Must find out if it had sound deadening mats on the walls or painted......

Those weight are big and heavy. I expect they will either keep or almost keep the nose down. I plan on adding some nose weight on either side of the nose gear well. Under the lower floor. Just like with a Liberator, the Peacemaker has precious little area to add weight. Plus, I certainly don’t want to over stress the nosegear. Even though it’s a very large reinforced casting, I don’t want to chance anything here. It’s big, but size is relative.

Hehehe. Hubert, that is the coolest of all B-36s, isn’t it?

Dale, it will have a wingspan of almost five ft.

Boy, he sure plopped that one on. I don’t like to second guess, I wasn’t there, but if it was a simple gear problem and nothing else, a bit more finesse might have avoided the total loss. Sheet metal is cheap. Engines and props are not. But when I read a headline “plane spins during emergency landing”, I’m actually reading “plane spins in during emergency landing”, and my exit muscles definitely clench up tight for a bit.

Yeah he did. He was aircraft commander rated in the B-36 and B-47

That’s a great idea. The used actual operational B-36s in that movie. Mostly just cockpit shots of course, much top secret stuff on lower deck, but it might help

Production has been slowed this last week and a half. I have a big ol’ case of influenza and have been VERY sick these last several days. I really don’t like this time of year in Texas. My wife dislikes it even more because she says I get mighty whiny when I’m sick.

Thanks Mike, but... Im really struggling with the color callouts for interior green. It just doesn’t seem right. A light grey seems to make a lot more sense to me. B-52s had/have grey interiors, and I’ve seen interior pics of two display B-36s. The last B-36, the “City of Fort Worth” at the Pima Museum has a grey interior. It was restored by ex Convair employees. The B-36 at WPAFB has a green interior... hmmmmmmm

The tail is made up of four VERY large, solid pieces of resin. The horizontal stabilizer is right about the span of a 1/32 P-51. These could have DEFINITELY been cast as hollow parts or in fiberglass. This is easily a pound of resin. Right on the very rear of the model. Not cool.

The nose weights are two very substantial pieces of very heavy metal. I have no clue if they will be sufficient to hold the nose down, as HPH saw fit to give us a horizontal stabilizer, elevators, and rudder in solid resin.....

And with the upper deck placed on. Engineers panel is placed at the rear just for illustration. This will all get inserted into the fuselage as individual components.

So here’s a look where we are today. the lower deck. Seats need to be added. That’s the small green blocks on the floor. I’m going to mock up the interior with the nose glazing in place. I have a feeling the visual bomb aimer’s seat will be visible from the front and should be mounted on supports, not a resin block. Obviously we need to give it a good wash and dirty it up slightly.

I expect I can, although the white dividing lines are next to impossible in 1/48