Minicraft Consolidated B-24 Liberator 1/144

[Eric Mc]

This is a bit of an odd one. As my Wellington is on the home run (hopefully), I thought I'd continue with the World War 2 bomber theme although with a bit of a twist.

The kit is by Minicraft although over the decades it has appeared in a number of manufacturers' boxes. It was originally released by Japanese company Crown in 1975. It's actually quite a nicely moulded little model and the parts look like they will fit together OK.

The twist is that I want to complete it as an airliner variant. BOAC operated a small number of these during World War 2 and for a few years post war. They were technically Consolidated LB-30 Liberators which were the original production variant of the B-24. The LB-30s had been intended for the French Air Force but France fell before they were delivered. Instead the small number built were transferred to the RAF who decided not to use them as bombers but as transports. These were eventually transferred to BOAC. The B-24 had excellent range and BOAC used these to ferry aircrew backwards and forwards across the Atlantic.

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[Old_Tonto]

That sounds interesting. Good luck.

[59North]

The LB-30 had a glass nose with no nose turret. Do you mean to convert this small model?

[Eric Mc]

I do indeed. Lots of putty/Milliput will be required.

[FAAMAN]

I'll look forward to this
I've one in the stash to do, for a challenge I'll do the assembly ship box scheme but corrected as it's mostly wrong, it's name is "Tubarao" and flew combat, not just a "pretty face".

[JohnRatzenberger]

I got several of those to do assembly ships with and then didn't get around to it.

[skypirate]

Interesting history, Eric.
It is a nice little kit. Not my scale, but readily to hand when I built a selection of compact Indian Air Force models for my Dad many years ago. The IAF successfully rescued a few from the WWII scrapyard and used these for maritime patrol well past their use-by date into the 60s, until they were replaced by a few ex-Air India Super Constellations (which were eventually replaced by IL-38s). When I was a boy I remember being taken to inspect one by one of the pilots and entering through the bomb bay and climbing up to have a look in the cockpit.

Hand-painted back in the 80s:



Good luck with your conversion!

David

[FAAMAN]

Very nice Skypirate, love 1/144, nice to see a different take on one of these

[Eric Mc]

Interesting version. I keep 1/144 for airliner builds - which is one of the reasons why I decided to do this kit as a BOAC machine.

[iggie]

That looks a nice little kit, and I'm looking forward to seeing it progress

[Eric Mc]

Crown/Minicraft produced a number of 1/144 World War 2 aircraft. I built the Catalina years ago but gave it away as a present. I'd like to do it again only this time I'd build it as a civil variant - perhaps one of the Canadian examples that were used for geophysical surveying into the 1970s.

I've got their Lancaster (in the form of a 1980sish release by Revell) in the stash which was supposed to be converted to a Lancastrian. However, A Model have since produced a bona-fide 1/144 Lancastrian so the old Crown/Minicraft one will probably end up being built as a wartime civil BOAC Lancaster, of which there were av few.

Damn - I'll have to go and look for one of those Catalinas on the internet now.

[Ratch]

Interesting project Eric

[FAAMAN]

@ Eric Mc,
Not sure if you know this but there has never been a 1/144 scale Crown Catalina of any flavour.
Minicraft (1995 first release) and Classic Cast (1990?) are the only manufacturers with a 1/144 scale "Cat".

[Eric Mc]

Noted.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter who originally released the kit. It looks like the Minicraft kit is quite rare at the moment as a brief search on the usual sites didn't show any available at the moment.

[FAAMAN]

Eric ,
https://www.oldmodelkits.com/index.php? ... escue-4435;