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opadesmet
Erik De Smet (opadesmet)
BE

Boeing B-17 emergency landing

Scale:
1:72
Status:
Completed

The USAAF Flying Fortress Y*GN was damaged at its return from a mission over Germany, and made an emergency landing on the Sint-Denijs-Westrem airfield near Ghent on Jan 10, 1945. The airfield was used at that time by the RAF . The story of the aircraft is documented at the website 303rdbg.com/pp-44-8495.html which is dedicated to the 303th Bomber Group. The tail surfaces of this aircraft were damaged on a mission over Germany and therefore it could not reach its base in the UK and made a landing on the airfield near Ghent, which was at that time used by the 131 Polish Wing of the RAF.
The runway was too short for a big plane like the B17, and it ran into soft soil where it damaged one side of the undercarriage
I won the old Airfix kit in a raffle and decided that it could be damaged beyond repair for this diorama.
I built the kit with a some detail on the inside, with the Eduard interior detail kit, mainly to avoid an "empty" look through the canopy windows. The structure of the damaged tail was made with plastic strip and rods and the crippled skin was made from a milk bottle cover.
Very visible details were the lowered flaps, for which I used the Eduard landing flaps detail kit.
On the landing B-17 had always the ventilation louvres of the engines in open position, and the kit parts are too difficult to modify. So I bought the Quickboost sets for the engines and cowlings, which are made of soft resin and could be cut open.
On one side the propeller touched the ground and was bent. In my case by heating the plastic near the flame of a lighter.
As the airfield was in hands of the RAF , I used the Airfix RAF emergency , the spectators came from the Heller RAF personnel set and to complete the scenery I used Americans from the Preiser ground crew set.

Project inventory

Full kits
02304-5
RAF Emergency Set
Airfix 1:76
02304-5 1975 New box Multi-topic (2)
05005
B-17G Flying Fortress
Airfix 1:72
05005 1975 New box
Detail and Conversion sets
QB 72 032
Boeing
B-17G Flying Fortress - Gun Barrels for Hasegawa
Quickboost 1:72
QB 72 032
QB 72 049
Boeing
B-17 Flying Fortress - Engines for Academy
Quickboost 1:72
QB 72 049
QB 72 114
B-17 Flying Fortress Corect Cowlings for Academy
Quickboost 1:72
QB 72 114
SS331
B-17G interior S.A. Academy
Eduard 1:72
SS331 2009 New tool
72458
B-17 landing flaps Academy
Eduard 1:72
72458 2007 New tool
Figures
72502
Pilots, Ground crew U.S. Army Air Force 1942-45 (12 Pcs.)
Preiser 1:72
72502 1999 New tool
79647
Personnel de la R.A.F. WWII (originally Airfix)
Heller 1:76
79647 1999 New box
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Photoalbums

18 images
Flying Fortress at SDWView album, image #1
1:72
top view
1:72 B-17G Flying Fortress (Airfix 05005)1:72 Pilots, Ground crew U.S. Army Air Force 1942-45 (Preiser 72502)1:76 RAF Emergency Set (Airfix 02304-5)6+

Comments

22 April 2016, 18:31