Being built at Fighter HQ alongside the TA152 at the moment is a B17G, 128" from the Jan Hermkens plan. This plan dates back to the early eighties and has been the basis for the many Dave Plummer built, one of which belonged to James Ladell until it's demise at Rougham last year, so this one is destined to fill the gap in James hanger.
The kit was laser cut by Belair for a friend of mine a few years ago. He framed up the fuselage and fin before giving up. The plan, scale u/c along with the survivng tailplane of a crashed model "Bit o' Lace" was aquired by me over ten years ago from a guy up in Hinckley who had built it and lost it on it's maiden.
So far I've built both wings and skinned the topsides and now need to build in the flaps and nacelles. The fuselage is now fully skinned and the fin was skinned last night. Some glassing has also been started, today should see the making of the chin gun fairing from chemi-wood and the completion of the rudder.
Theres many parts which needed to be modified to work on this model, Leon at Belair has been able to change these by cad and cut them properly but some of them I've just has to persevere with. The biggest issues to overcome so far have been the removeable top deck just doesn't fit as the frames are not wide enough, some formers are wider oneside than the other and the worst thing so far is the plates which form the basis for the nacelles are meant to glue flush onto their respective ribs, thats fine until you put the wing onto the fuselage, at which point the dihedral kicks in and puts the nacelles on the wonk. So these will need to be packed out.
Despite it's issues and the fact that most people will say it's just a small model by todays standards, it's still a "Fort" and really looks the part.
