Clunkmeister

Excellent, Carl! Thank You!! That's a HUGE miss. Not hard to fix, but if you assumed the design was finalized when places into production,. you'd have no clue about it. I take it the door is only on one side of the nacelle? Hard to believe I've never finished this kit. It really is a glorious thing, although those engines kicked my butt.

Carl, I missed seeing any posts on that and don't recall what was missing or wrong. Do you have any references on that? HK sure has come a long way since the B-25, back from when the design originally went into production.

Looking GREAT, Scott! It’s hard to believe that the old 111 served in military service well into the 1960s with a few Nations. It was certainly a solid design, if not all that aesthetically appealing.

Back when family TV really was that. Wholesome shows where the good guys always won.

How can I express my feelings about this? Well, let’s see…. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ When he traded in his Bamboo Bomber for a 310 (yes, Cessna was a major sponsor of the show, back when personal airplanes were actually affordable), I cried…. But I did a lot of hours in 310s, so I get it.. Looking forward to seeing the old Bamboo Bomber, or the “Useless 78” is what I also remember, come together. As an aside with the Bamboo Bomber, the RCAF used a ton of these in its BCATP program through WW2, and many used wooden fixed pitch props. On a nice, hot muggy Saskatchewan summer afternoon, an engine failure in one on takeoff with full fuel and a plane load of trainees must have made for some interesting moments.

It’s a big, big boy.

I’m going on record as saying that the HK A-20 is miles ahead of the HK B-25 in engineering and thoughtful assembly. Building the engines on this kit has to be one of the most miserable jobs I’ve ever accomplished on a 1/32 model. Ever. They are incredibly goofy, have twice the number of pushrods as a thallus required for an R2600 (or any pushrod engine) needs to operate reliably for thousands of hours, AND, when you go to assemble the cowl, you find out the engine is too big. I already knew this so I simply didn’t attach the rocker boxes, and they fit just fine. Cut off the pushrods on the rear set of each row, but use the center rings because they’re needed for correct spacing. Plus, don’t shirk on the rear of the engine because the cowl flaps are open and the rear of the rear row is visible. Then, as soon as you’re done and patting yourself on the back, you realize you gotta do it all over again.

Rob, I had found it on EBay out of Australia, and I believe Carl had pointed me in the right direction. there is so much more I could do here, but absolutely nothing whatsoever will be seen once it’s closed. Even Martin, my mentor said, “dude, CLOSE IT!!!”

Been picking away at this thing today, doing some slight changes to the interior

The 345th preferred the strafers, and didn't have alot of success with the gunships. Their units were absolutely devastating on the enemy with low level gun attacks, and pretty much wrote the book on tactics on fighting the B-25 as a low level attack aircraft. With decent overhead P-38 support against Japanese fighters, they could concentrate, and many targets didn't need to be revisited until rebuilt. They HAD mistakenly attributed the big gun to loose rivets, panels, etc, until they started having the same issues with the J strafers. Removal of, or limited use of the package guns helped the airframe fatigue situation greatly. The big gun's biggest issue was the slow rate of fire. But the gunship was absolutely tailor made for Marine Corps badassery.

But it doesn’t say what the Marines did to the three recognition lights under the right wingtip after they installed the radome on the wingtip. I’m curious if they relocated them or just never reinstalled them

Now I want to open my bomb bay doors. Oops too late. I already burned mine, them stomped on the melted plastic, then burned it again.

That right there is mighty impressive.

Probably so, Scott. And with proper adjustment, the bindings would have released before her body rolled past the snapping point. I always absolutely refused to rent boots and skis.

Looking forward to getting back home and jumping back on this little beauty. Or I can be like Martin and start a new build

You said the magic words. "Port" As in the kind that comes in a jug. Just get a straw

On Christmas Day, 1985 I did exactly the same thing. Was at the Zermatt resort for a week over Christmas and did me a freeze frame skip job down one of the one of straight sections. Face first. Freaking HURT. But Blessings, they were my OWN boots and bindings, which I had purchased at the PX so I had them dialed in pretty good, and both bindings released and the skis flipped off the moment my lips touched down. The old face looked like 40 miles of bad road. It's better to crash at speed than the low speed wipe out. Usually it's better for one's lower legs. I Hope she recovers quickly. I've seen some nasty green stick fractures from skiing accidents. I'm actually surprised her ankle let go. With properly fitted boots, her ankle should have been fine, but her lower leg and possibly her knee might have been worse off. If renting, always go a bit light on the settings, and adjust the weight settings accordingly. I'd rather lose a ski and wipe out than wipe out and not lose my skiis.

How absolutely RUDE of her!!!

Like the vast majority of gunship and strafer shoot downs over the target, it all started with a blown approach due to weather. Hindsight is 20/20, but a steep turn at altitude dictated by lack of viz blows their surprise and the gunners are wide awake. Strafing by bombers was always incredibly successful and devastating, IF they came in low, fast, and with every single gun blazing, dropped 250 lb bombs with delay fuses, they more often than not would never need to return. Ever. But cruising around up high to stay out of the soup and then looking for a break in the cloud, always ended up with at least one kite getting shot to crap. I highly recommend reading “Air Apaches”. It’s a true history of the 345th BG in the PTO. “Warpath across the Pacific “ is as good also. They’ll curdle your blood when you read how, almost every time there were casualties on target, bad approaches started it happening. The 612th and 613th had 3 years of AAF Ops doctrine to guide them, which they usually used

Hey Carl, that text looks awesome and may answer all my questions, but favor time… I know it might be a pain, but is there anyway you could scan or copy those pages flat so I could easily read them? You can PM me or email me if you wish. Post them if you’re comfortable. And, do they have any pics of the light installations as well? This is gold mine quality info here.

Thanks for that, Martin! Thank you again so much.

Craziness. Bureaucracy working its magic.

That IS odd. You could darn near get a group order together and one guy do a day trip to the Company itself.

What’s amazing is how crews with these gunships and strafers would turn into attacking Japanese aircraft and willingly mix it up. They were quite effective. In a head on attack, an attacker would be overwhelmingly outgunned.

Here’s a couple pics of her and of the witness reports with crew disposition, courtesy of Pacific Wrecks. It can be very hard to read.