Academy B-17E in the Hawaiian Air Depot Scheme in 1/72 Scale

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 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.