First Look at Revell’s 1/72 B-17G

This will be a lot of firsts for me, I have never built a kit from Revell and never a 1/72 scale kit.  I was surprised by the quality of this kit as I have never ranked Revell as a high end kit player but the amount of goodies they provide in such a small scale was refreshing.

Box and Contents

I must say, my first impression was not a good one.  Revell must really save money on their box production because the thin cardboard was smashed and crushed in every corner and I was sure I was going to be dealing with a handful of damaged parts.  Fortunately, all the spruce was safe and sound wrapped in their plastic bags.  On the flip side, I do love the box art!

At first glance the instructions look a little cluttered and confusing especially with all the different variants of B-17’s but, as Revell suggests, this is not for the beginner modeler.  Most modelers will ditch these instructions.  For such a small scale there are a lot of pieces that make for a lot of nice detail.  Several pieces for the engines, which will help in painting, and the ball turret alone is composed of twelve separate parts.  Pretty impressive for being a 1/72 scale.  

The cabin walls have ribbed detail and lots of extra goodies like the Norden bombsite, radios, ammo boxes, and decals.  However, it looks like most of the details will be hidden once the fuselage halves are closed up.

Engine

The Curtiss-Wright R-1820-97 radial engines are composed of five parts and the superchargers are molded separately of wings, which once again makes for easy painting.  I love the idea of the ignition tubes being molded separately but they look a little large for the scale.  The props seem accurate but be careful trimming them off the spruce because the injector connection is on the prop blade edge.

Clear Parts

The clear parts look very accurate and several options are available for the main cockpit, astrodome, nose cone, waist gunner, and tail gunner.  The front nose side windows are one piece which eliminates the need to fix seems around tiny little windows.  With careful masking the front section should look very convincing.   

Decals

The decals look like they are of good quality and provide two very cool bombers.

Also, included in the kit are lots of nice stencils.  I really like the four stencils for the bottom turret, which adds a nice touch to a small scale

All in all I am excited to switch off from a giant 1/32 P-51 build to a little less detailed 1/72 kit.  Of course I always say I will just get this one done without extra effort but I already have several upgrades for it.