Early Boeing B17D Flying Fortress for Fs9

Hi Mick,
Well why not, but not just yet...
By the looks of it a B is a C/D with the A gun blisters, so not too hard to convert...
So if you do any hold back and I'll get round to doing the B fairly-ish soon.
Cheers
Shessi

Yep, the visible difference between the B and C were the 3D or flat gun positions, including a blister instead of the big dustbin belly position. As far as I recall those were the only external changes.

I will keep the pics I found on the web, and my printed modeling references are always at hand. As the thirties progressed, the Army went from wild colors on planes like the P-26 to plain silver with only unit codes. The B model came along during that transition, late enough to be natural metal but early enough to get some colorful markings like cowlings in squadron colors, squadron badges, formation leader stripes. Like how silver P-36s were colorful but silver P-39s and P-40s all looked alike except for unit codes. I can come up with at least three or four skins that have some color or some markings that wouldn't be on the later models.
 
Yep, the visible difference between the B and C were the 3D or flat gun positions, including a blister instead of the big dustbin belly position. As far as I recall those were the only external changes.
One other external difference between the "B" and "C/D" Forts was that the observation blister in the cockpit area was offset to starboard.
As the B-17Bs were updated to C standards with flush waist positions and a dustbin ventral position, the observation blister was the only
obvious identifying feature. Live action shots in films such as I Wanted Wings and Air Force included some of these updated B-17Bs.

"Mary Ann" in Air Force.

10Early.jpg
 
Well, I'm a bit out of my comfort zone with wartime stuff camouflage, which I never thought attractive anyway, so I wasn't planning any wartime skins. But the mention of "Mary Ann" from the movie "Air Force" got me thinking.

"Air Force" was the very first war movie I ever saw, as well as my first aviation movie. I watched it on television with my father when I was just a little kid. I thought I might pull out my copy of the film and see just what "Mary Ann" looked like, since I haven't watched the film since childhood. I took a copy from one of the commercial-free movie channels some years ago but didn't watch it at te time, just put it in my video library.

Now we have a picture that shows us that "Mary Ann" had more than the standard markings and a name on the nose. I'll still have to check the movie to see what the rest of the plane looked like, but my motivation to do that has increased thanks to that still photo.

I'm having an extremely busy period time right now so it won't be today, but I'll pull out the movie when I can and see what I might see.
 
"Air Force" was the very first war movie I ever saw, as well as my first aviation movie.
The Howard Hawks film Air Force is an exciting aviation film. When I first saw it in the early 1960s, I got my first glimpse of the B-17D. I too favor the colorful
and polished pre-war Fortresses, but the camouflaged Forts have a special interest too.

Now we have a picture that shows us that "Mary Ann" had more than the standard markings and a name on the nose. I'll still have to check the movie to see what the rest of the plane looked like, but my motivation to do that has increased thanks to that still photo.
Here are a few additional photos from Air Force. Have fun watching it again.


MaryAnn 10.jpg
#10 "Mary Ann"

MaryAnnD.jpg
If you look closely under the belly of
the second aircraft, you can see the
"B" type ventral gun position of the
third airplane.

NoDeicer2.jpg
In the Philippines. Battle damage
repaired by the crew, "Mary Ann"
gets ready to fly again. Note the
absence of the #10.
 
Good stuff, very interesting H.

Now that is a mix of types. Mary Ann 10 is a B17B; and 8 is a B17D, as it has cooling gills and ventral gondola; next to a B17C, no cooling gills but with ventral gondola...:dizzy:

The thrid pic has the title of NoDeicer2, so is this another pic of Mary Ann or NoDeicer2?

No worry Mick, as most of these ac were pre-(US)war, and so camo is not so common.

Cheers

Shessi
 
Couldn't resist, just had to try in FSX, other than a couple of minor gauge's missing from the VC, everything works fine out of the box, prop disks and glass look really good and i love the sound set :wavey:
 
Now that is a mix of types. Mary Ann 10 is a B17B; and 8 is a B17D, as it has cooling gills and ventral gondola; next to a B17C, no cooling gills but with ventral gondola...:dizzy:
My opinion is that the aircraft used in the 1943 film, reflect the rapid changes made to the B-17 design before the U.S. entered the war. When Air Force was filmed, these
aircraft were in second line duties or being phased out, so they could be spared for use in making the movie.


The thrid pic has the title of NoDeicer2, so is this another pic of Mary Ann or NoDeicer2?
It appears that different planes or special effects models were used to film some sequences. Most viewers probably never noticed the differences. I didn't until I researched these photos several years ago. Below is a photo of "Deicerboots".

Deicerboots.jpg
 
I had this bird up in FSX today for over 4 hours. Everything Ian Elliot says is accurate. I was particularly impressed by the props, they are the best I've seen in any FS9 bird I've ever tried to run in FSX, they look and run fine "right out of the box" with no tweaking or replacing. It also handles well in the air but IMO requires a little more "finessing" of the controls, particularly on approach and landing, than a standard "big tail' B-17. Part of the fun of handling this much-ignored predecessor of the famous E, F, and G models of the -17.
 
OK, I'm gonna paint "Mary-Ann" from "Air Force."

I guess there will have to be two versions, one with the big number 10 on the nose and tail that she still wore when she got to Hawaii, and one without it as she appeared in the Philippines.

The big 10 was typical of stateside advanced trainers so naturally it would have been painted out in the combat zone. Seldom do we see such attention to detail in a movie! (Although since the plane was part of a combat unit from the start, it probably never would have had the training markings at all. Still...)

The thing I'm scratching my head about is the color of the number 10 and the name Mary-Ann. White or yellow? In one of the still photos posted earlier it seems like the number 10 might not be quite as light as the white star in the insignia, which might suggest yellow for the other markings, but the difference in tone is minimal so I'm far from convinced.

Edit: OK, I decided. The markings look more like the yellow of the serial number than the white of the star, so yellow they shall be.

Edit: I was too quick to praise the movie for authentic markings. While working on the skins I finally noticed that all the national insignia are the later roundel star without the red center. The red center wasn't deleted until s few months after the period depicted in the movie, but the movie plane has that style even in the pre-war opening scenes. Oh, well, it's only a movie.

Edit: OK, done. It sure is easy when all you have to do is add some markings to those excellent base textures.
 
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Edit: OK, I decided. The markings look more like the yellow of the serial number than the white of the star, so yellow they shall be.
They both look great Mick!


Oh, well, it's only a movie.
That's right. It's the 1943 Hollywood version of the Swoose saga. If you want to do a Swoose, I'd be happy to contribute
the documentation that I have.

The Swoose.jpg
"The Swoose" as it appeared when
it returned from the Southwest Pacific.

The Swoose It Flys .jpg
The original artwork.
 
They both look great Mick!
That's right. It's the 1943 Hollywood version of the Swoose saga. If you want to do a Swoose, I'd be happy to contribute the documentation that I have.

I might be tempted, but I think I'd be more likely to paint The Swoose as she appeared in her days in Panama as a VIP transport, all shiny bare metal with the big flag panel (a la Thunderbirds) showing all the countries she visited, rather than in her early wartime olive drab livery that looks just like every other OD Army plane.

The biggest problems are that I might not be able, with a reasonable investment of time and effort, to find the AAHS Journal issue with the photos of The Swoose when she was based in Panama, and if I find them they might not have photos that show the entire aircraft and all its markings.

The other is that Swoose artwork, which seems to have remained with the plane in all its guises. I have no clue about the colors even if I could paint it, which is beyond my skills. I took a quick Google and found some images but as so often happens, they weren't all the same, and none were a straight-on shot of the version on the airplane that I could just copy and paste onto a texture file.

There are also other factors. For one, I am presently very deeply involved in another project, which has yet another high priority project pushed to the back burner. So I can squeeze in quick and easy repaints like those silver birds and Mary-Ann, but ones that require real research and time must be put on the back burner. Another is that wartime skins aren't usually of great interest to me. I do some, but they're not high on my priority list.

So The Swoose might get painted, but not today and probably not real soon.
 
Early Swoose

On the other hand, an early war Swoose wouldn't be any harder than Mary-Ann was.

In my perusing I found a profile of the early Swoose on Wings Palette that includes a larger image of the artwork. We know that artwork is a suspicious reference, often involving artistic license or guesswork that turns out to be wrong. But it would make the paint job easy, since it's the only distinctive marking.

Alas, it only shows the left side of the plane. I suppose it was the same on the right but I don't know. And I think there might have been something over the rear fuselage entry door.

So, Hurricane91, do you have anything that shows the right side of the plane as it appeared when wearing the old OD camo? I mean something that shows whether there's something written over the door (or not) more clearly than the photo you posted? (If not maybe I'll just go with that.)

It still won't get done today, but maybe before the week is out...

One last issue - by the time The Swoose got to Australia and got those insignia without the red centers its finish was pretty beat up, and I can't do weathering worth swat. It would've looked a lot less weathered earlier when it had the red centers to the stars, but I don't know if it had the artwork in those days. Does anyone know? Hurri, do you have anything that would answer that question?

If I do the basic paint job, would anyone else want to weather it prior to release?


 
One of the best things I like about your repaints, HISTORICALLY CORRECT! (Or pretty darn close to it). The eye candy adds to that quality as well. Superb paints, Mick!:applause::applause:

BB686:US-flag:
 
Mick, would you like me to send you the Swoose images I have collected so far? If so, PM directions to me, and I'll start packing them up.
 
Mick, would you like me to send you the Swoose images I have collected so far? If so, PM directions to me, and I'll start packing them up.

PM sent. All I need is confirmation or refutation of the artwork being on the left side. We know from the photo ypou posted that it was on the left, but there appears to be other stuff around or behind the artwork that I can't make out in that photo.

Otherwise, no markings at all except the national insignia. It will be quick and easy if I can get the artwork without too much trouble.
 
I wasted about 1.5 hours of my life last night trying to get the "Swoose" logo onto Shessi's OD fuselage texture. Mick and others here are far better painters than I am so I will stand by and see what others can come up with. I was about to tape a piece of paper to my monitor screen and trace the bird off a photo.
 
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