During 1951, the B-47 entered operational service with the United States Air Force's Strategic Air Command (SAC), becoming a mainstay of its bomber strength by the late 1950s. Over 2,000 were manufactured to meet the Air Force's demands, driven by the tensions of the Cold War. The B-47 was in service as a strategic bomber until 1965, at which point it had largely been supplanted by more capable aircraft, such as Boeing's own B-52 Stratofortress. The B-47 was also adapted to perform a number of other roles and functions, including photographic reconnaissance, electronic intelligence, and weather reconnaissance. While never seeing combat as a bomber, reconnaissance RB-47s would occasionally come under fire near or within Soviet air space. The type remained in service as a reconnaissance aircraft until 1969. A few served as flying testbeds up until 1977.

This kit was initially issued in 1955 according to Scalemates, so has been around a long time. I can recall building this one in the early 1960s and still have the remnants of it somewhere. This kit has been released several times with this one a 2006 and most recent edition. 

The kit itself is still quite nicely tooled with no real flash so the tooling was kept in good condition. The builder will have to deal with some hefty sink areas in the engine pylons and some ejector pin marks/towers. This is a stand model with no landing gear. It also has all the decal placement marks molded in place so no issues trying to figure out what goes where. With no landing gear, no nose weight is needed when closing the fuselage halves. The kit appears to be an early B-47A 

Building this should be pretty quick as it has fewer than 25 parts. Typical of many kits of the era, the cockpit crew is molded onto the fuselage halves but are little more than blobs. Each of the engine pods is three parts with the inner ones having a pylon. The wings have a long insert on the top of the wings, which is a bit odd compared to modern kits that use this method. A display stand is included, but it is not the S stand that we often equate to these older kits. Oddly, the decal sheet contains a large, round decal that is often associated with these bases.

Instructions are quite retro with an exploded view on one side and adverts for other period kits on the other. Looking over those kits, I see quite a few that I've built over the years. The decal sheet looks to be quite usable, which is a good deal. There is also an addendum sheet with a new exploded view as the original has the wing part numbers wrong.

This would be a purely nostalgia build should you wish to give this one a go. The B-47 has not been well served in any scale with the now rather elderly Hasegawa kit being the best option for the 'serious' builder and the Academy 1/144 versions the choice for the smaller scale crowd. However, if you like kits such as this one, it can easily be recommended and you won't get apoplexy over fiddly bits. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_B-47_Stratojet

December 2024 

Copyright ModelingMadness.com. All rights reserved. No reproduction in part or in whole without express permission from the editor.