[STARMAN 352ND]

Are the Armour B-17 Forts worth the money ?
I was thinking of getting one.
JP

[SKUNKY]

No..........

[mustangdriver]

I have the Memphis Belle. Are there some flaws such as the wrong type waist windows in it? Yes. I do however enjoy it. If you don't mind overlooking a few things, they can be great.

[Aircrafty]

They are an ok buy for about $50 if you have the space and aren't fussy. Their main attraction is their size as the detail is not as good as the Corgi versions.

[mustangdriver]

I am ahuge B-17 fan, and i need to vent. In my opinion the Corgi actually is not that good. I have three of them. All of them have main landing gear struts that are way to tall. There are no waist guns in most of them, and the chin turret is wrong. The things that I do like are the vast array of paintschemes to choose from, the fact that they took the time to put the right tail stingers on each aircraft, and the scale of the model.
As for the Franklin Mint B-17's. I think that there is a lot of good things in them such as the over all heft of the model. The turrets look right. The G models are pretty accurate, the put the G model waist window in the F versions, but when the F models windows were closed it looke like a G model window. I think that the Franklin Mint should put out a few different paint schemes in the B-17.
This is just my opinion, so take it for what it is worth.

[STARMAN 352ND]

Well then maybe i better wait up a little before getting one.
There seems to be flaws in both 1/48 and 1/72.
Unless there is a new mold coming out.
JP

[JC Woodman]

I like my British service B-17 fine. My biggest beef w/ Franklin is the huge seam gaps on some of the subjects. The worst is the DH Mosquito nose, though the B-17's also suffer from this. Corgi is guilty here also (see the B-24 noses). This is a pitfall of many diecast subjects, but can be avoided in my mind w/ good initial model design. I took my Franklin DH Mossie "Cookie" bomber (one of my first diecast purchases) and filled, sanded and re-painted the huge gap in the nose.

[aeroeng]

I've got the General Ike one & love it. I agree with JC about the seam lines. I bought this one at a hobby shop and luckily they had two. The first one had a huge seamline right thru the nose art on the left hand side. I looked at the second one and it was perfect. I tried to link a picture off of the Flying Mule but couldn't get it to size properly for this site. Any help with pictures is appreciated.

[STARMAN 352ND]

Ike has been a good one i'm hearing.
Seamlines are that bad on there huh.
JP

[JC Woodman]

Yeah, I have noticed a variation on these sort of details w/ both Franklin and Corgi subjects. Corgi though in my opinion is more consistant, a gap on one will be same as the next while I do notice some variation on the Franklin models.