RE: 1/72 Academy SB2C-3 Helldiver, VB-20 CV-6 USS Enterprise, Oct 1944 (1 Viewer)

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wingnutz

Airman 1st Class
278
67
Apr 20, 2007
Singapore
hey folks,

here's the last of my "Battle of Leyte Gulf" allied aircraft builds...

it's the SB2C-3 Curtiss Helldiver that was stationed on the Big "E" (USS Enterprise) during this historic epic sea battle that was the biggest ever that saw the remaining Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) and the allied armada clashing on air, land and sea...

the "Beast" as it was fondly called by it's crew, was one of the most successful dive bombers in WW2 which sank more enemy shipping than any other allied aircraft...

the kit was derived from an academy 1/72 SB2C-4 kit and was converted to a dash-3 version in accordance to the type flown during the BOLG operations...with the four-bladed prop and 20mm cannon wing armaments retained as well...

the following modifications were applied on this build;

1) removal of the wing rocket racks as this is a dash-3 version;
2) replaced the propeller spinner to a longer type from spare srue;
3) customized the rear cockpit folding top canopy directly behind the gunner/radio/radar operator to show a folded configuration;
4) added aerials from a .15mm fishing line;
5) grilles for the front upper engine cowling from styrene sheets;
6) routed out the emergency inflatable raft tube and stuffed a rolled piece of tissue colored in gunze orange to simulate a rolled life raft inside...

colors were gunze mr hobby acrylics showing the navy tri-color scheme of that era, weathered with an oil wash, flat coated and dulled with mr hobby weathering pastels...

the decals were from satellite and a white "k-trading" water slide decal sheet, while the stencils are from the kit itself which was really detailed for this scale...

this kit has fantastic detailing all over, most specially the cockpits, so for this build, i decided to show an open cockpit finish...

the only gripe about on this kit is you need to cut the outer swing arms for the bombs to make them fit in the bomb bay...the exhaust cheek mounts also needed a bit of filing to make the exhaust pipes fit...

i used red pastel colors to simulate the red internal colors used for the flaps and air brakes...

overall, i really enjoyed building this kit and i highly recommend it if you would consider doing a build for this aircraft...a limited edition version is also available with PE parts, also from academy...custom parts can also be had from white ensign models...

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more images of this build in this link...
 
thanks folks...

hahaha...you mean sneak this in as an entry in the PTO GB???...i've got the required shots actually, but i'm a bit hesitant to ask if it is too late if i could humbly submit this build in the PTO GB...
 
so if the moderators don't have anything against moving this thread to the PTO build (both WIP and finished threads), i'll update the required shots of the finished project accordingly...
 

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