Something to do with your cruddy old B-17 kits.

Wot no waist guns!!!

Someone has way too much time on their hands.... :-)

Yeah, but check ouot those cannons under the canards!

Neat, but I'll wait for the Rutan B-24. :-)

Is.....that....REAL!!??


I want one......maybe in 72nd though....

I just noticed, the forward half is a YB-40, the crippled decoy ship used in the Med which had a second dorsal turret and twin .50's in each waist position. Its mission was to drop back from a retuning formation, looking like a crippled aircraft, easy pickings for the Luftwaffe. When the unsuspecting attacker came in, he'd be faced with significatnly heavier firepower, thus discouraging attacks on any apparently damaged, slower aircraft.

Nice

Never seen a YB-40 heard all about them though, to slow (due to weight) to stay in formation or something like that.

Now when will we see the Rutan B-36 :-)

Ciao
Luciano

:-) :-) A few days ago I submitted this pix to Merlin, asking if I should put it in Aircraft Jeporady as a trick question.

HalfYank, where did you find it? I originaly found it at some whimsical aircraft art site, but after getting permission from the site owner to post it, I couldn'rt find the URL again I subsequently found it, and a built model, at another model site:
Rutan B-17

I've seen it on a number of sites over the last few days. I originally saw it on a military site, I think it's called the Strategy Page, under military humor.

Its an amazing pic.
Looks like someone contracted a dose of the ole Luftfortysixitus.

However inspiration is a good thing :-)


Great stuff.

Cheers
Peter
:-)

Hi Peter

I must admit my first thought was that it reminded me of Keith Woodcock's painting of the Vickers Type "C" too!

Going back to the earlier remarks about the YB-40; like Luciano, I've always been led to believe that its intended role was to provide additional firepower within a formation (not drop back in the guise of a "cripple")" and that the project failed because the test aircraft couldn't maintain formation with the very aircraft they were designed to protect once the standard B-17s had dropped their bombs... although, of course, they could look after themselves pretty well once separated! I'd love to learn more specifics about the tests.

All the best

Rowan

I agree, I seem to remember reading somewhere that the YB-40's left England able to keep up with the formations, but the extra weight of the turrets and ammo slowed them up on the way back. Remember the B-17's were a few thousand pounds lighter after they dropped their bomb load.

IIRC, and it's been many years since I read it, it seems that Martin Caiden described this tactic in his book "Flyinbg Fortress." What he said, again, if my memory is correct, was that they played decoy particularly to get one or more captured aircraft that were picking off damaged B-17's.

IIRC Caidin wrote his book way back and may not have had full access to correct information. He was a great aviation writer, but I think maybe a historian second.

YB-40's never went to the Med, and as others have already described basically flunked their operational intent because they couldn't keep up after the formation had dropped their bombs.

I do have a Monogram B17, all sorts of after market including the Paragon YB-40 conversion & this might be fun ....

John

Speaking of decoys...or similar

I came across this at
[url=http://www.corbis.com[/url]
Image: HU014703



Inspiration for a dio?



Dear Moderator...
If there is a copyright issue by publishing this, please remove image

Apparently it was somewhere in the Netherlands.

Cheers
Peter
:-)

wonder what the engineers had been smoking or drinking to put the wings round the wrong way lol


matt