Revell 1/144 B-52G Stratofortress

Revell 1/144 B-52G Stratofortress

Copyright 1990
Kit # 4583
Cost: $5 USD
Type: Plastic Injection molded kit
Aftermarket: none. Built straight out of box (as always!)

There are few aircraft in the world as widely recognized as the classic Boeing B-52 Stratofortress. Entering service more than four decades ago, the loveable BUFF (Big Ugly Fat F***er) has proven to be an airframe with staying power. Modified continuously over the years, the B-52 has gone from high-altitude nuclear bomber to low-level penetration bomber and back to delivering conventional free-fall and standoff weapons from medium to high altitudes once again.

Because of its iconic nature, the old BUFF is certainly saleable as a plastic model kit. However, because of its size, it doesn't lend itself well to being produced as an "everyman's" kit. Anyone who has built the old Monogram 'Big Bad and Beautiful' B-52D in 1/72 can tell you that Boeing's long-lived eight-jet monster is a large chunk of styrene to assemble, paint and display.

Thankfully, there is an alternative that is a little bit more suitable for construction and display. That is Revell's 'small scale' 1/144 B-52G, which I'm reviewing here.

After building lots of Gundams and other Japanese model kits, I was expecting this American-branded (but Korean made) model to be something of a disappointment in terms of detail and quality. To my surprise, the actual kit is quite good. Looking at the parts in the box, you get the impression that some care was taken in the manufacturing process.

The kit is a typical injection molded polystyrene affair, and comes molded entirely in dark green, except for the cockpit windows which are molded in clear. The colour itself is way off the mark, but the fact that it is dark makes it easy to cover in the BUFF's typical dark grey paint scheme.

There aren't very many parts to this kit, although ease of assembly isn't all that badly compromised regardless. The landing gear come in halves, with the hub molded into the center of the wheel. (Always distressing, having black and white painted parts that close to one another, and separated only by the steadiness of your hand!) The landing gear bays are simple, with some wiring detail on the 'roof'. The landing gear legs come in one part for the front pair, one for the back. These are glued into the bay, and the bays are then glued into the fuselage, before the halves are joined.

The cockpit leaves something to be desired, but this hardly matters since you can't see it through the small windows anyway. There are two simple chairs, a crude and poorly detailed dashboard and a center console that tries to give the impression of the eight-throttle cluster, but fails miserably. No matter, the outside of the plane is what is really important anyway, right?

Thankfully, the outside is remarkably well detailed. There are good deep panel lines inscribed on the wings, and the landing gear doors, legs and even the wheels are well detailed. The multitudinous external stiffeners that have been added to the BUFF over the years in an effort to keep it from simply breaking from overuse are reproduced quite well. Unfortunately, the panel lines on the fuselage are a bit weak, requiring some re-scribing with a pin. The plastic itself is quite hard, so a couple of passes were needed to ensure the re-scribed detail came out right.

The detail on the B-52G's four double P&W J57-P-43WB engine pods is minimal, but the compressor faces and exhaust nozzles are well done, and the use of a black wash helped to highlight things rather well. There's not much detail on the tanks, and the wing pylons are also fairly basic. The panel lines on the horizontal and vertical tails are nice, and the various hatches on the nose are pretty well done too. Strangely enough, the Harpoon missiles are very well detailed, given their size!

As far as fit goes, however, the B-52G is a bit of a nightmare. The wings and tailplanes fit fine, but the fuselage halves were a bit warped. Well, okay, a lot warped! When the tail was held together, the nose halves were about half an inch apart. Doesn't sound like much? Just think, at full scale that would be a six foot separation! Thankfully Testors liquid cement is tough and I was able to muscle the body together without too much frustration.

On the other hand, joining the wings was not so easy. There was a HUGE gap between most of the wing and the body attachment points. I had to fill it with Milliput, it was so big. Unfortunately, the sanding thereafter resulted in the loss of several vortex generators, but what can you do?

This kit was released in 1990, before the BUFF returned to war in the Gulf a year later. As a result, it is armed for maritime patrol/attack with twelve AGM-84 Harpoon missiles. It is interesting to note that there was a single part that wasn't used: one of the small aerials that denote nuclear ALCM carriers as mandated by the SALT treaty was also included. I haven't seen this kit armed with AGM-86s, but with the aerial attached near the front of the plane (see Scott's article on B-52 markings) you could do it up as such.

The kit comes with waterslide decals for two SAC versions. I chose to do it as USAF-76490, an aircraft based at Rome New York's Griffiss AFB, similar to a machine that visited the London International Airshow in 1991 (those exact markings are depicted in the article mentioned above! ed.). The kit is painted in early 1990s two tone green and grey. The grey is darkened Gunship Grey, and the green is Dark Green, both being Testors Model Master acrylics. The kit was coated in Future to prevent decal silvering, and then flat coated.

The flat coat proved to be a problem, and I have since determined that there is no way to hand brush on flat coat. As a result, the top coat is mostly Future with some Tamiya Flat Base added. While not as flat as it should be, it at least isn't mirror shiny, either. The panel lines were shaded in using normal 0.7mm mechanical pencil lead (HB).

As a kit, the 1/144 B-52G is a fairly good offering. It has good surface detail and the proportions are excellent. This particular model was a bit warped, though, so there is a 3 degree cant on the vertical stabilizer, and the two wings are slightly different in edge-on view. The most difficult part is the cockpit windows, which include the roof, and which have to be glued in and sanded down BEFORE painting. This makes things a lot harder than they should have been. Overall, it was a decent kit considering I paid only $5 US for it, albeit a number of years ago. It is, however, not a kit that someone without some practice should really attempt.