Italeri

1/72 B-52G "Gulf War"

Kit Number: 1269

Reviewed by  Dick Montgomery, IPMS# 14003

MSRP: $85.00 Thanks to Model Rectifier Corporation (MRC) for providing this review item. www.modelrectifier.com When I first shared some images of some of the model parts for this kit with a friend his comment was, "That's big!" This model is definitely Big, Bad, and Beautiful.

Upon opening the box one sees 8 part trees. The canopy is attached to its own part tree as are the wing halves and 4 fuselage components. The starboard and port fuselage halves are, themselves, separated into a forward and rear component. The decals are presented on two decal sheets, one being rather small and the other quite long. Markings are included for 3 B-52s. "Valkyrie", "El Lobo, and "Grim Reaper", and from the 2nd BW stationed at Barksdale AFB in January, 1991. The kit instructions are printed front and back on a 5-fold "brochure". Included in the kit, but not used on the "G" are parts for other variants of the B-52. These extra parts allow one to modify the tail gun area. If some manufacturers tend to over-engineer their models, this cannot be said of this kit. While not a model that could be characterized as "challenging", this model calls upon the builder to practice those gap-filling and alignment techniques one acquires as a modeler. Like all kits, this item has both pro and con characteristics. Instructions: The illustrations for the subassemblies are easy to understand. The part numbers are clearly marked. Colors are clearly indicated for various parts as well. In fact, the color legend includes the FS # for the colors that are recommended. Decal placement is also clearly illustrated within the sub-assembly steps. Very frustrating aspects of the instructions are the profile drawings showing the camouflage schemes, specifically for "El Lobo II". The instructions are in black and white, and it was very difficult to match up the printed gray-scale "color chips" to the shaded areas on the drawings. Decals: While the decal placement is indicated on the instructions the small size of the drawings made it difficult to locate the decals at the proper position on the model. The registry on the decals is dead on. The decals are strong enough to hold up to some repositioning once they are applied and this is important for the "wingwalk" strips. It takes a bit of work to get them aligned. A disappointing aspect of the decal sheet is that all of the markings must be closely trimmed to reduce the amount of carrier film that gets applied along with the decal. You will experience silvering so be ready with a sharp X-Acto blade and some SolvaSet. Fit and Alignment: I was not a fan of the fact that the fuselage came in 4 parts (Left/Right and Forward/Aft) rather than 2, but the additional seam was easily closed. The parts feature a unique and strong "locking" design which made assembly easy and resulted in a hairline seam that was easily filled. The cockpit and main gear wheel well components fit nicely into the fuselage halves and provide some internet support when the fuselage halves are assembled. The wing halves also fit nicely and require very little gap-filling along the leading and trailing edges. Some problems begin to appear when the engine pylons and cruise missile pylons are attached to the wings. The attachment points for the cruise missile pylons could be better. Each "attachment point" is actually a slot in the wing, about ¼ inch wide, 1.5 inches long, and 1/32 inch deep. There is a corresponding tab molded on the pylon itself. One is supposed to place the tab in the slot and apply glue. The tab is not "tall" enough and the slot is not deep enough to provide stability to the pylon. Some locating pins would have made this situation less of an issue. Additionally, the attachment point does not aid the modeler in aligning the pylon properly. The engine pylons fit better than the cruise missile pylons because they actually fit over and under the wings with a V-shaped groove as a guide. These pylons slide into a groove and actually stay in place without glue. However, the fit between the pylons and the wings call for a considerable amount of gap-filler. Filling in the seams on all of these pylons is a very tedious task, but then that's what happens when one builds an eight engine bomber. A pitot tube and an antenna are molded as part of one of the fuselage halves. The pitot tube is molded with a right/left side and when the fuselage halves are joined one gets an annoying seam on the tube. The antenna is molded as one piece and is located entirely on one fuselage half. Thusly, no seam cuts the antenna in half. However the antenna complicates the process of sanding down the fuselage seam and, of course, did not survive the assembly process without being broken off. Remove these items, store them until the model is ready to paint, and then re-attach them. There was a tendency on both wing tips to find the tip on the trailing edge to be slightly warped. The warping is very small and can be dealt with during the assembly process, but also can interfere with the smooth joining of the upper and lower wing halves. The panel lines and scribing are a bit deep for an aircraft in 1/72 scale. But on the plus side the depth of the scribing makes it easy to re-scribe the lines after sanding and filling the seams. On such a huge model it isn't as noticeable as it would be on a more diminutive subject. Care must be taken to make sure that the main gear axles are parallel to the ground when the struts are glued into place. On my model the struts tended to splay outward and the result was that the outside set of tires doesn't touch the ground. One of the most serious issues can be found in the engine nacelles. The parts that represent the turbine fans in the air intake and exhaust areas do not fit well. This problem is more noticeable from the exhaust end than the intake end. In the end, with good references and patience one can produce a creditable model of a B-52 with this kit. The price is a bit steep, and the model has some issues that must be addressed to bring it up to "contest" level, but I like 'em big and this one is certainly big. An internet search will yield sources that discount the model and I'm sure that copies of the kit will be found on vendor tables at a reduced price.

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