For those of you who want to stay atop of things, here are a couple of inputs I have received regarding theBoeing 707/C-135 family of aircraft.

First is from MajorTomski

I had the privilege of working on the C/KC-135 and VC-137 fleets for over 11 years, in the Depot at Oklahoma City. I eventually held the title of chief structural engineer.

A lot of you will have your fuses lit if we misidentify a Bf-109E-3 from an E-4, yet for the Boeing fleet y'all have no problem with the delusion that they're all the same airplane.

Well they're not. There are at least 6 different Boeing designs that the world thinks are all 707s
the 367-80 prototype
the 707-100 short winged airliner, the VC-137A
the 717 or KC-135A
the 707-300 the long winged airliner, the VC-137B&C, and the basis of the E-3
the 739 or RC-135A or I think they are KC-135Ts this week.
the 720 the lightweight hotrod derivative of the 707-100 airliner.

The significant differences
The wing. -100 and the -135 share the same short 130'10" wing. It is easily identified by the inboard flap meets the fuselage fairing at an angle. The 720 wing is roughly the same size but has a lot of aerodynamic improvements. The-300 wing has a plug at the root that extends the span over the original wing to 145'9", increases the chord, and the inboard flap T.E. is perpendicular to the fuselage.

The fuselage. The –80 is the shortest of all the birds. The 135 is the next longest, the –100 is longer still and the –300 is the longest of all. The –80 and –135 have a 4” smaller cross section. You can conceivably slide a –135 fuselage inside of a 707. The entire 707 fuselages is a pressure vessel, including the cargo compartments. The –135 floor is the bottom of the pressure vessel. Except for the area under the cockpit, surrounding the nose wheel well and the boomers pod the lower lobes of the -135, which contain the fuel cells, are unpresurized.

The Revell ancient kit that Da Boss reviewed this week as an E-3 is a 707-100. The tanker kit only has a boom pod added. I never did an in-depth study but I believe to make it closer to a tanker you have to take a scale 20 inches out of the forward half of the fuselage. To make an E-3 you need to graft in 15 scale feet of wing.

And lastly. Last year there was a big broo haa haa over the B-52 turning 50. Well there are no 50 year old B-52’s flying. The closest they came was NASA’s B-52B, which was retired around that time. On the contrary, the first and it really will be 50years old soon –135 is still flying as a command post out of Tinker AFB (55-3118)

Another e-mail on the subject from Jennings....

Ah, the confusion!  You mentioned in your review that the Revell 1/139 AWACS kit had its origins in their KC-135 kit.  Well, sort of, but not really.  The KC-135 and the 707-120 kit actually came out at more or less the same time (ca. 1957/58).  The AWACS is a modification of the 707-120 mold, as the KC-135 mold had a cargo door and boom pod molded in (and TONS of rivets). 

As for it being an E-3 AWACS, that it *definitely* isn't, and can't be made into one.  The kit is a civilian 707-120B with a radome, and the -120 series 707 is vastly different from the -320B series that the real E-3 came from.  The -120 series has a much shorter fuselage and the same basic wing as the KC-135. The 320B has a much longer fuselage, different wing/body fairings, and (most significantly) a much different and larger wing, both in span and chord.

The only way at present to get a reasonably accurate 1/144 (or thereabouts) E-3 is to use the Minicraft 707-320B/C kit and graft on the Revell radome.  You're still left with inaccurate engines, but that's another story.