1/48 Combat Models YRB-49A

by Gerald Asher 

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The COMBAT MODELS Flying Wing kits are basically all the same, whether you get the prop- or jet-driven version; just the scale drawings differ as near as I can tell.  This 'conversion' was done from their XB-49 issue.  I think I used a total of less than a dozen(!) parts from the actual kit, since the shapes were so rough.  Beyond the upper & lower wing half parts, everything was kitbashed or scratchbuilt.

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The main landing gear struts were scratchbuilt from brass & aluminum tube stock.  The main landing gear tires, engine exhausts and nacelle engine faces were resin cast from my own molds - tires being done from re-mastered vac kit wheel halves, and engine exhaust and inlet faces being modified from Revell F-89 parts.  All of the cockpit glass was vacuformed from scratchbuilt molds because all of the kit clear parts were pure junk.

The finished product wasn't a show winner, but I was happy with it.  Sadly, the kit is no more - its demise sounds like something straight from a 50's science fiction movie.  Picture an invasion of giant (scale) insects: actually, an infestation of carpenter ants made their home inside darkness of the wing itself.  I first noticed them when I looked in my display case one day and noticed something moving in the cockpit.  I had to remove the model from the case and ended up destroying it, saving as much as I could of my work for its next incarnation: the original XB-35 with contra-props.  The moral of the story (which I learned from a professional pest control friend) is to keep a No-Pest strip in your display case and change it out every three months.

Gerald 

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Photos and text © by Gerald Asher