Going thru some books I had packed away I found Bert Stiles wonderful account of flying as a B-17 co-pilot during the last year of WWII.

Stiles was assigned to a B-17G (50-Bo) coded LL*D. The pilot was 2nd Lt. Sam Newton, and the group was the 91st Bomb Group (H) at Bassingbourn.

I was wondering if anyone knew of any decals for "Times A-Wastin'" in 1/48 scale that might be available?

Bruce,
I can't answer to the availability of after market decals, but I can suggest making your own. It is not as difficult or as daunting as it may sound. Does your book have any good reference photos? What about other texts or the Internet? If so, it is just the matter of scanning them, pasting into a word processing document, resizing to the right scale, and printing onto decal sheets. Testors makes a custom decal product which I have had luck with: http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/decals/tes/decal_tes_decal.shtml

If all else fails, and you have the computer equipment, it is an option. And it is a skill that will come in handy later on.

Good luck with your hunt!

Keith

Keith,

Thanks for the idea. I think I can get some of the Testors stuff at Michaels Arts and Crafts. Unfortunatly my copy of Serenade was printed in 1970 and had no pictures in it. All my internet searches so far have not shown serial numbers or a clear shot of the art work. I have tried the 91st's web site as well as a general Google search.

Bruce,
Wow, you weren't kiddin', there is almost nothing out there, graphically speaking, on that famous bird. How sad is that?

AM decals would be the way to go. As a last resort you could gen up your own decals. The aicraft and tail #s shouldn't be too hard to do. Fonts can be found aplenty on the internet. The Snuffy Smith lookin' character (if I have that right) for the nose art would be the difficult part.

Keith

Keith,

Thanks. You are right, this bird has been immortalized by Stiles book and should be better remembered than she is. I have found 2 pictures of the plane, one in colour, that show part of the nose art. I guess that is something to start with.