Better late than never. Here are the stripes finished. I'm doing all the painting first as the two halves are easier handled when seperate. I'll have touch ups to do when everything is assembled.

Looks excellent, JP. It is going to look stunning when finished. It will be interesting to see how the star decals turn out.

Looking forward to see more

Revells SR - 71A Straight out of the box, needs weathering and dangly bits stuck on



Will finish it when new compressor turns up, old one gone FUBAR.

Andy

Nice build dude

Excellent looking bird, Andy. What kind of weathering will you use? I have the feeling these birds are kept in prestine condition.

Greetings everyone,

I decided to join the campaign since I just got my "wings" today. As you may know (I know Jesper does) I am an AFV modeller. The birthday of a close friend was coming up and I decided to make a surprise with a B-2 Spirit, this being my first airplane.

I started the build on 31st August. Reaching completion in just 13 days, it is a record for me. I'm a slow builder and get bored with kits quite easily, so it takes me 2-3 years to get anything done.

The kit I picked was Revell's 1/144 scale B-2 Spirit. Not a lot of pieces, but lots of fit issues coupled with my inexperience. Since I was trying to work as fast I could, I made lots of mistakes, but carried on trying to catch up with the deadline.

Here's the kit:


And the pieces in black plastic:



I first fitted the canopy, it took some patience as the fit was far from perfect:

Next step, putting on lots of weight behind the cockpit, so that the weight of the long wings won't cause the plane to rear up:



Next comes the preshading using Tamiya's black and white:


Then painting the B-2 with grey, made from mixing Tamiya paints.

Of course, after it dried, I thought the color was too light and too gray. Looking at my references, I mixed more black and some blue to get this:



Thinking this color was OK, I proceeded on. I airbrushed X-22 Clear cote, applied the kit decals and airbrushed another layer of X-22. There's a lot of silvering I know. I tried cutting away the inner portions of the decals, but then when I was trying to apply them they broke into pieces. Hence the "missing" walkways that should have streched to the wings. The "white" on the nose is the reflection of the flourescent lamp of my paint booth.



Yesterday, I speed-assembled the runway. The frame was custom made and the floor is made of thin MDF. On that, I glued on some thin cardboard, cut away the runway blocks and painted everything with various grays. It is probably over or underscale, but aesthetics is what I was after.

The B-2 was dull-coated and I refrained myself from weathering. It looks OK to my eye.





Here's the "animal in the cage":



I'll be taking this to my friend in 2 hours, hopefully it will be appreciated. It is far from perfect, but in my opinion it is a nice start. More airplanes will follow, it is a nice change after so many AFVs.

Welcome to the dark side, Emre I also find aircraft a nice diversion and change compared to AFVs. I normally have a build going for both an AFV and an aircraft. In this way when you get tired of one you can work on the other.

Your B-2 looks very good. I think you captured the difficult greyish black scheme quite well. I hope you friend liked it.

Looking forward to see you in more campaigns on Aeroscale

Hi Emre,

Welcome to the "light" side (the dark side being armour, of course)

Really nice work on the B-2. The Revell 1/144 kits are little gems. I'm sure your friend appreciated it,

Take care,

Mike.

totally agree Jesper but vice versa armour is a diversion from a/c .. at the moment it is again more aircraft .. but I just ordered a few sets for the ICM 222 that is staring at me all day and then there is the Steyr Pritsche conversion that is progressed pretty far but still lacking the final assembly .. one day ...

@Emre: very nice B-2 ... sadly there is not much pilots or vehicles in 1/144 .. a Hummer for size comparison would be nice

I am curious if the B-2 will be available in my scale (1/48) one day .. maybe a vacu ..

cheers

Steffen

Hi again everyone!

Glad if you liked my B-2. My friend absolutely loved it. You wouldn't believe but my friend is a she, a girl loving B-2s and airplanes... She just moved out on her own and this was a gift both for her birthday and her new house.

Mike, this kit is a farcry from a gem. Yes, small amount of pieces but they don't fit so very nicely, especially the wing tips. Besides, it is rather large for the ordinary 1/144 scale, the wing span is about 40cms (16 inches).

I think I will be doing more aircraft. Fellow modeler friends who are into aircraft have sent me a couple of airplane kits as gifts and they demand me to build them Next in line is a Hasegawa 1/48 P-51D, which I plan to complete in olive drab with nude nose art. Let's see how that turns out.

Steffen, I think you own a hangar, yes? Wishing for a 1/48 scale B-2? I think its wing span in that scale will exceed 1.5 meters (close to 160 centimeters). I can't even think how you would carry around and paint such a beast, not with a hobby air brush and model paints...

Hi Emre

Err, I do not expect it that large .. I have a Bone and thought it would have a little more wingspan. I figure about 1,1m ... 5243/48 .. I have seen a 72 model and the 48 should be 150% of that one .. still there would be the problem to get that wing stable. Should not be too hard to carry around in a car.

all the best

Steffen

Although there is barely over a month left, I decided to try and get my entry for this campaign done in time. It is the 1/48th scale Tamiya F-117. I will be using an eduard photo etch set with it. I bought the Verlinden F-117 update set but the quality of it is mediocre at best. I may not use any of it. We will see.

Tonight, all I got done was the assembly of the exhaust vents on the upper half of the body, attached the bomb bay, folded 8 PE bomb bay door hinges.

I will post a couple of in progress photos over the next few days.

Sounds like an interesting build, Brent.

Looking forward to see the pictures

I have yet to start on mine. Still trying to find a 1/72 Scale Academy F-117. I have a 1/48 scale F-117 but i do not have the space to display it. Thus i have to go small. Cleared a bradley parking lot on the display cabinet for an aircraft now

Very quiet here, but I've put the stars and bars on and glued up the two halves.



Should make the deadline

Looks cool, JP. This is really a striking scheme.

Looking forward to see it finished

It'll look great flying over Emmet's bed, caught him looking through Flypast yesterday
totally immersed in it

He's not even 2 until next week! It'll make a nice birthday present for him.

You might as well get him into the aircraft modeling hobby early.

Thought i'd share pictures of how the F-117's coming along now...





RIP...

Guys,
If we need to extend this mission, we ll do it! Nobody gets left behind. What would be a reasonable extension time? 3-4wks? I understand locally here the younger modellers are having exams and i myself got into an accident, i ve dislocated my left shoulder. Man it hurts. Nevertheless, i m still gonna build stuff once the numb disappear

Oww, that's sounds painful, hope you get better soon.
I finished my build about a month ago and forgot to upload any pics .
Anyhoo, pics now uploaded in the campaign gallery.
Italeri 1/48th F-117 Nighthawk. Not a bad kit for the cheap price, but I would imagine the Tamiya offering is a lot better.

Andy

Hi all!

Some good looking models are beeing made here, for sure!

Due to space and time limitations, I had to scale down my ambitions!

I resorted to the smaller 1/144th scale, but It´s still a F-117A, tough.

I used the Dragon twin-pack;



This small box are fully packed with parts for two aircrafts, one black on top with the hilarious flag scheme on the underside, and one in dark and light compass grey.

The kits was very easy to build and this is how my first one turned out;















My grey bird is left somewhat behind, still needs a glosscoat, decals and a matt coat.
This will also be fully "bombed up" with the bay open and redy for action!



Cheers!

Stefan E