I have recently purchased a 1:48 revell b-17 flying fortress visible edition. It comes with one side of the fuselage in clear plastic to enanble all the interior detail to be seen.

My question is whether i should build it wheels up or wheels down?
If i build it wheels up then it will be harder to display, but if i build it wheels down then the crew standing firing the machine guns at the waist and nose wont make much sense

What do people think?

JH

depends on how much display room you have?

Also realize that the main gear tires are "weighted" so you'll have to rotate the weighted section towards the top for gear up, also the gear isn't designed to be up, but its not too hard to make it go up. Same for the tail gear.

Some times displaying models causes crazy events... I'm building an SBD, wheels up where I put a lot of detail into the cockpit, but left the aircrew out.. Must be being flown by ghosts.

To display it wheels up, consider mounting it on a stick (maybe 3/8 dia clear acrylic rod). A little preplanning might find a good place to hide the stick in the fuselage and let it look like you really captured a moment in flight..

considering that half of the model is transparent which si not ery realistic either, i would not owrry too much about having crew armed to the teeth in a model with the wheels down on the tarmac.

This model will be a showcase of the interior

Here's goes my idea:
There's a company called Prop Blur http://www.propblur.com/ that makes pe props that look very realistic as in flight ones. I would use either a brass or acrylic rod secured to a nice wood base with something like the aircraft's nose art or a picture of an aerial ground shot on it as if it was flying over it.

Thanks for the advice guys