The Little World

Nearly. 90% of this airplane is a dream to build and the last 10% is the sort of dream you get with too much cheese at bedtime.

It’s the nose, you see. Italeri were faced with the need to make a set of windows as well as a revolving front turret and elected to mould the nose as two halves trapping the turret. This would not have been bad, but the rails that allow the turret to rotate foul the windows.

If you paint the interior the light Italian green you can see glimpses of it through the side windows. The track is a vague lump that spoils the front. I have elected to show the sides open but paint-in the front two windows.

The fuselage halves fit perfectly, as do the wings on their roots. No filler at all. The tail likewise is a good fit, though the design is a busy mess to support the two rudders. I’ll bet that thing whistled like a church organ as it flew. It is a little surprising to see the twin tail when a single would have cleaned up the lines beautifully. No tail gunner to spoil the line.

The top gunner spoils it enough. It is one of the clumsiest top turrets I’ve ever seen for just one .30 cal gun. He apparently has to raise the glass-topped rubbish bin to get a firing position, and that would have cost speed. His mate on the bottom has a clamshell door that he can drop open with another machine gun. Only rear defence.

To be fair, no-one else was making things look a lot better on their bombers at the time…