1:48 B17G Flying Fortress

The painted noses of English airfields

The Eighth Air Force operated from bases in eastern England and its crews spent long days of waiting between individual raids. It was out of those hours that the tradition of painted noses grew. The ground personnel always had somebody among them who could draw, and a finished design became for a crew both a token of luck and a signature by which the machine was recognized on the hardstand and in formation alike. The placement of the drawing settled down so firmly that the left side under the cockpit became an unwritten standard across the whole air force.

This item offers four such machines of the B-17G type. They carry the names Daddys Delight, Miss Lace, Iza vailable Too and Duchess Daughter. The last two names show the period fondness for wordplay, in which an ordinary English phrase turned into a female epithet. The printing additionally includes the marks recording the results of combat activity, which were painted in a row under the cockpit window.

Recommended procedure

Before applying them it is good to seal the area under the design with gloss clear. The Flying Fortress has only a slight curvature on the sides of the nose, so the film settles without great trouble, but at the transition to the frame of the side window it helps to use a solution that softens the drawing and draws it into the edge. The smaller marks of combat activity are applied last, because they are laid in an exact row and it is better to mark their spacing out beforehand in pencil. Store the unused remainder of the printing in the dark, because the paper and the colors yellow with time.