1/72 Italeri B-57B Canberra

Gallery Article by Ed Ellickson aka "TheRealMrEd" on July 28 2009

 

As a kid in the fifties, I grew up living right under the final approach of the main runway for Langley AFB in Virginia, when they were flying these planes in these markings. I fell in love with them then, and still love them today!

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In any event, the kit was built pretty much out of the box, with a couple of exceptions: I added the correct engine faces for the American versions, with parts I cast from resin. All the Italeri (and most other) kits come with the engine faces that are correct for the British Avon engines, but not correct for the American J65's. I also added some BLU-27 napalm canisters from the Hasegawa Weapons Set #1 "Bombs And Other Fun Items". Although I'm fairly certain that no one every flew this load in combat, I wanted to depict a load of weapons that were shown in a famous publicity shot of the period. 

The decals in the kit were kind of thin, and I had problems with the first set. Fortunately, I had a second kit that I'm converting to a B-57A, so I covered the  set from that kit with a couple coats of Microscale Liquid Decal Film and used those. Also, the tip tank and vertical stabilizer decal emblems were very translucent, so I had to cut out the same shapes from white decal sheet to go under the squadron and wing emblems. I used Model Master enamels throughout.

Ed Ellickson aka "TheRealMrEd"

Photos and text © by Ed Ellickson aka "TheRealMrEd"