However the museum has since corrected Strawberry ***** and the George had just gone back on display from undergoing an in depth restoration. Granted, some of the museum's oldest aircraft had accuracy problems, for example the markings on the B-24D 'Strawberry *****' and the N1K2 George. I believe that the NMUSAF does a very fine, meticulous, job of restoring their aircraft and compiling their exhibits. I also do aviation sheetmetal work and have seen the museum's restoration efforts.
I spent quite a bit of time at the museum in June looking at the exhibits and examining the airplanes.
I am also a history major specializing in aviation history. The bomb is painted a dark color but whether it is dark green or black is hard to tell. Unfortunately the lighting in that hangar is poor which makes photography difficult unless you have the best camera and lenses. I also have a photo of the Little Boy replica. The lighting in that particular hangar is the best of the three and Memphis Belle II, the F-105, has black lettering not red. Among them were two of the Memphis Belle II. I was at the NMUSAF in June of 2008 and took 300+ photos. They have been known to make the occasional faux pas, such as the red lettering on "Memphis Belle II." Unlike the National Air & Space Museum, I tend to take the USAF Museum's research with a grain of salt. Otherwise, get yourself an old set of Monogram instructions from the original release and follow them to convert the B29 into a silverplate bomber. However, since Meteor Productions is out of business, most everything that has a cutting edge label on it commands premium prices. Someone might have a set they're willing to part with but that's up to the people that have them.įYI: IF (and that's a big if) you can find a Silverplate conversion set for the Monogram B-29 by Cutting Edge, you might invest in that to make a more accurate replica. Microscale had a set of Enola Gay decals (sheet 48-569) but are long since out of production. I wouldn't use the originals as they probably will shatter when placed in water (there is a fix for that by spraying the entire sheet w/clearcoat or microscale liquid decal film) but since the original Monogram decals were "user unfriendly" I'd make my own. Someone might have a set of old Monogram decals that you may be able to scan/copy and print on decal paper. I have no idea whether this is correct or not. IIRC, Fatman was to be painted a "mustard" color. If someone has the original kit with the instructions, they should be able to tell you what color Monogram tells you to paint the little boy. There are no markings on the bomb of any kind (that I can discern), on black and white photos or the color photo at the USAF museum. The black and white photos of another similar bomb show it to be a color that is not black. A sister bomb to "Little Boy" in the museum of the air force is painted in, what is to me, a semi-gloss olive drab.