B-17 Flying Fortress — Handmade Metal Model Airplane
B-17 Flying Fortress — Handmade Metal Model Airplane
Model details
- Construction
- Handcrafted
- Collection
- Aviation Models - Airplanes Models
- Item no.
- AJ048
The bomber whose crews believed it would bring them home — and often did, in a condition that made no engineering sense.
Handcrafted on an iron frame, hand-painted in authentic wartime colours with decal insignia. Metal propellers, rolling landing wheels, and the deep-chested fuselage and broad tailfin that made the B-17 unmistakable from the ground.
Details
- 100% iron frame
- Metal propellers
- Landing wheels that roll
- Hand-painted in wartime livery with decal insignia
- Cockpit, wing and turret detail
- Ready to display
The aircraft
Designed in 1934 and first flown on 28 July 1935, the B-17 became the Eighth Air Force's instrument for daylight strategic bombing over Germany — flying in tight defensive formation, bristling with machine guns, through flak and fighters to the target and back.
On paper it was the inferior aircraft. The B-24 Liberator was faster, flew further and carried more. What the B-17 had was structural stubbornness. Crews brought them home with noses blown open, tails gashed, wings holed and two engines dead and cold. Many pilots credited the airframe with their lives. Boeing and its licensees built 12,731 of them.