1/48 AMT A20G

Gallery Article by Fred Branyan on Jan 10 2018

 

      

This is the AMT 1/48 A20G model on a Marston Mat base by Coastal Kits.

The model is intended to duplicate the plane on which SSgt Mario J. Angeloro was the top turret gunner. He was the step father of a friend and is the crewman on the right in the photo below. A crop of a photo of the plane from this site
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/Upcoming/Photos/igphoto/2000571373/ is below the crew photo. The plane was assigned to the 640th Bomb Squadron, 409th Bomb Group, 97th Bombardment Wing stationed at Little Walden from 3/7/1944 to 9/18/1944, after which it was transferred to France. The model is an attempt to duplicate the photos further below. 

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The model had serious gap issues on the L elevator and the R nose cone to fuselage attachment points. I was also unable to get the turret guns down to a level position. Other than these issues it was a fairly easy kit to build. The wing bomb racks were scratch builds with plastic card and rod, as were the formation lights on the bottom of the fuselage. 

The figures were built by fellow Lehigh Valley Scale Modelers Club member Brad James.

I tried to match the basic plane colors to color photos of USAAF planes. Please contact me if you would like a list of the Tamiya acrylic paints I used. 

Only light weathering was applied to the cockpit and the nacelles. The aerial photo of the plane upon which I based the model appears to show a pretty new and clean paint job, so I did not go nuts with weathering. 

The engine nacelles have exhaust stains applied with colored pencils that you can see with the mirrors. 

The formation lights on the bottom of the fuselage are colored plastic that I found in the spares box.

Following after market kits used--canopy masks/cockpit and raft/all landing gear/landing gear well interior framework/all 50s/bombs/instrument panel decals. I added a few items to the turret and the cockpit based on my photo collection and research. The mirrors on the base are to show the details of the wing bomb racks, invasion stripes and formation lights. 

This was the first complete plane model I have built in over 50 years. Apologies for the defects. 

Fred Branyan

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Photos and text © by Fred Branyan