1/48 B-17G Grandpa Bill's Plane (New Here)

[Bomber Boy]

Hello Fellow Plane Builders, I'm new to this forum and would like to introduce myself. My name is James Herndon, and I love building models. Since this is a model forum my best intro should be by Model.

These Dioramas are of my wife's Grandpa's B-17G "Ain't Miss Behavin' II" from 1944. This is the second of three plane they had shoot out from under them, with NO loss of life in 33 missions with 5 over Berlin and on D-Day. He was with the 452nd BG 728th BS. I have spent hours on the phone and corresponded through snail mail with the Radio Op. Al Winant to make sure that she is as accurate as possible. She is depicted here on the morning and evening of June 19, 1944, the day she was lost. These are my favorite builds, not that they are the best, but that they are part of my history and they were built for love. I hope you will enjoy looking at them as much I enjoyed building them. I will post more as we go along as I have the entire build documented and as warranted I post more, don't want my first posting to be tooooo photo heavy.

Enjoy,
James

Actual Nose Art




The Crash

Again thanks for havin' me !!!

 

[Chiefpettyofficer]

Wow, nice done. Shes looking great! Very realistic aircraft details

 

[ShutterAce]

Nice work James. Gotta luv the Fortress! ;D ;D ;D

 

[austin132010]

some great work. the crash looks awesome.

 

[spud]

one of the coolest looking aircraft of all time i think.

 

[the Baron]

Welcome, James, and thanks for posting your dios! You shouldn't worry about photo-heavy posts--I'd love to see more shots of both, and am looking forward to seeing your in-progress pics, too. What figures did you use?

What a great tribute this is for your grandfather-in-law! What did he say, when he saw it?

 

[Bomber Boy]

Thanks for the warm welcome fellas. I'll get around to posting more photos a little later today.

Baron unfortunately we lost Grandpa Bill several years ago and he never got to see his tribute. as I said Al Winant gave me most of the info and reference material, He now lives in Mass. and is 89 years old, a great person for sure. Grandpa Bill never spoke of the war and if asked he gave one word answers Yes or No. Al on the other hand has been a wealth of knowledge.

Again thanks for the warm welcome,
James

 

[Chris S]

Welcome to the Herd James ,and what a piece to introduce yourself with !!...great work on the Big girl and the dio ,Look forward to seeing more of your work .

Chris.

 

[Myke]

Welcome Bomber Boy, and what an entrance you have made. Amazing work on that diorama.
Glad you joined the herd.

 

[Quaralane]

beautiful work on both versions of her here.
Nice, faithful reproduction of the nose art

 

[fumblethumbs]

Great stuff James. Thanks for posting and welcome. I agree with the Baron, keep the pics coming!

 

[13aceofspades13]

thats supreme...

 

[Bomber Boy]

thanks again for the comps guys, what a warm welcome! I'm at a motel for the weekend vending a festival in Charlotte NC, so I have high speed for the time being, so here are some more shots of the two dios as promised.

Baron, the figures are from CMK, Verlinden, and out of the box. I am presently working with a friend in the Engineering Dept of Virginia Tech, to produce two new sets of figures with ten poses each. One set will be of a bomber crew running either for Alert or just getting away as in the crash dio. and the other of a bomber crew posing for nose art shot in front of plane. I feell the crash dio. leaves out a lot of the story with out the crew running away, and I just could not find anything to do that with so I started this project. will keep ya'll posted on the progress.

So now for more pics of these builds, first is the uncrashed "Ain't Miss Behavin'II" then crashed.





photo of names on plane




just the base to show weathering on concrete.

Now for the crash, there are a lot of these
























told ya'll this would be photo heavy, will post more soon, Hope you have Enjoyed these so far.

James

 

[Quaralane]

Thank you for those.
Nice to see how it all goes together

 

[13aceofspades13]

the detail on this thing is crazy! you can see bullet shells and oil streaks and all sorts of stuff...

 

[the Baron]

WOW! Thanks, James, for the closer look at the project. I love the work you put in and the details!

If you go forward with your project to produce crew figures in 1/48, please do let us know. I am very interested in them. I grew up on Monogram and Revell kits in the '70s, so I have an ingrained love of figures to go with my aircraft or ordnance.

I'm sorry to hear that Granddad passed on before he could see this, but I bet he would have been touched. He sounds like almost every WWII vet that I know. My Uncle Kermit was the same way, he never talked much about his time in the war, except for the humorous stories, and usually after we had a couple of beers. Only after he passed away 2 years ago, did we learn that he was awarded 2 Bronze Stars and a Silver Star, as well as the Purple Heart, while he served with Patton's Third Army in Europe.

We just had a group of local veterans come into our office and talk about their experiences, and one of them asked us why we were interested. We explained that we think it's important to learn and to remember what they did, and their example, especially since so many WWII vets are passing now, and also, they came home, and got on with their lives, and so, there wasn't too much thought given to recording their stories.

But back to your diorama--again, well done, and thanks for the additional pictures and info about how you built it. Great job!

 

[redraider56]

If you go forward with your project to produce crew figures in 1/48, please do let us know. I am very interested in them. I grew up on Monogram and Revell kits in the '70s, so I have an ingrained love of figures to go with my aircraft or ordnance.

Ditto, I would definitely buy them. I got my own B-17 dio creeping along and I know the pain of finding enough figures. I ended up finding the ones I needed but I doubt I'll ever see another of them ever. If/when you ever get to the production stage they should get a warm welcome from the modeling community, especially those like us that love the big bird dios.

 

[Bomber Boy]

I will definitely let you know!!! I'm hoping to make them in 1/32, and 1/72 as well. Should start work on them soon.

For now and since we are on the subject of Grandpa's planes I'm doing a series of them, I have not started "Ain't Miss Behavin I" Yet., But I have his stateside training plane "Good Pickin" and a clear side version of AMBIII, as well as His one kill during the war. He was the only person in his crew to get a kill, a Fw 190A-5, though it was on his in country checkout flight while on another plane so the Kill while his was credited to another plane.

The next set of pics is of those other planes, figured I'd get the set out of the way then I can move on to some of my other recent builds, all within the last year and four months or so. I hope you enjoy these as well.

Again photo heavy!

James

1st "Good Pickin"







AMBIII

Map of last flight on desk








Now the Kill Fw-190








That should be good for now I have more of all three, If you have any questiona as to how I did something just ask I may have a photo to illustrate.

Thanks for Looking,
James

 

[Quaralane]

Beautiful work on those.
I remember that old "Visible B-17" kit from when I was a kid. Nice use of her

 

[the Baron]

More excellent work!