Here is another Flying Fortress in the Hawaiian Air Depot camouflage, 41-2437. This is one of two HAD scheme Fortresses seen in John Ford’s documentary film of the Battle of Midway. The U. S. national markings were modified by ALNAV97 on 06MAY42 which directed that the red centers of the insignia should be painted over in white and that the tail stripes be removed. In this case the rudder was painted over in black. If you look closely at photographs taken of U. S. aircraft which were active during this period many of the white stars show signs of overpainting.
The kit is the Academy E model Fortress. I didn’t spend a lot of time detailing the interior of this one as very little can be seen inside. I did replace the engines with Quickboost resin which look much better. I also enclosed the wheelwells and added some detail there. The big change which is needed is the kit comes with a ball turret in the belly, and the HAD Scheme Fortresses which fought at Midway were all still equipped with the Sperry remote turret at the time (not the Bendix turret as most references erroneously state, which is different). For this model I used a Kora resin belly turret and scratchbuilt the sighting blister for it.
Build thread here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/hawaiian-air-depot-camouflage-scheme-batch-build-part-i/
How many did you build?
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Just the two. I will build a B-18 in the HAD scheme, the first attempt did not work out. I have the Airfix B-17G to build soon too.
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Have fun Jeff.
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Photo of belly (you mentioned revision of gun turret) shows it painted to match; was this turret remotely controlled?
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Yes. The Sperry remote turrets were ineffective and replaced with the manned ball turrets, probably shortly after Midway. Described here: https://inchhighguy.wordpress.com/2018/11/18/the-b-17e-and-the-myth-of-the-bendix-ventral-turret/
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Check out 41-2524 at the beginning of the Midway doc as it has a manned ball turret, under the wing of an E with a newly repainted red ball. Ball turrets started at 2505.
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Actually there are 6 or 7 ball turret E’s in Ford’s documentary. 2611, 2648, etc
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Thanks Rich, I worded that wrong. Most of the B-17s at Midway had the Sperry ball turrets, that is what they were built with. The HAD Scheme B-17s which fought at Midway still had the Sperry remote turrets, they were not replaced with the ball turrets until later – most pictures of HAD Fortresses in the Solomons show the manned turrets.
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