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Gun-aiming windows blanked off, with tiny windows in the middle. gun-aiming equipment removed. Turrets removed and blanked off. Aerials on uppersurfaces. The Academy kit has it pretty much right. Not too difficult seeing that the real thing still exists.

A Google Image Search on 'Enola Gay' results in more piccies than you can wave a krill at. The shiny bits of the airframe (which is most of it, except the wing uppersurfaces) were very shiny - a good candidate for Bare Metal Foil of Alclad II Chroime.

Cheers,

Chris.

Edited by pingu1
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They had uprated engines and visually, the propellers had cuffs plus the crawl way was repositioned to one side which was neccersary because they had modified bomb racks. They were designated B-29A

Robert

Edited by kitnut617
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Props were changed from Hamilton Standard to Curtiss Electric on Silverplate B-29s. (the atom bombers). Don't be misled by thinking that they cuffed the ham standard props on these machines. I don't recall if the R-3350's were turbocompound engines or not. Regular B-29's were not.

As was previously mentioned, gun turrets removed, as were the obligatory sighting blisters. Tail turret remained but the 20mm gun was removed. (lot's of B-29 groups removed the 20mm due to the difference in the trajectory between the 20mm round and the 50 cal. round).

Sorry kitnut but your information is lacking. The atom bombers didn't have their tunnels moved to one side. See the attached photo of the Enola Gay's after fuselage. Note the attachment point for the tunnel, it's smack dab in the center of the fuselage, upper side. That's where they all were. You're looking at the aft bulkhead of the bomb bay. I do belive that your information on the B-29A designation is also incorrect. IIRC, the designation B-29A was given to those B-29's built in Wichita, KS but I'll have to check my sources on that before committing 100% to it. It's been awhile since I've dabbled in B-29's.

I've also attached a picture of Enola Gay's tail turret. These two photos are of the actual Enola Gay, not some restored wannabe. This is "THE" aircraft that flew over Hiroshima and dropped little boy.

HTH

TimC

EnolaGaytunnetl.jpg

EnolaGaytail.jpg

Edited by timc
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Sorry kitnut but your information is lacking. The atom bombers didn't have their tunnels moved to one side. See the attached photo of the Enola Gay's after fuselage. Note the attachment point for the tunnel, it's smack dab in the center of the fuselage, upper side. That's where they all were. You're looking at the aft bulkhead of the bomb bay. I do belive that your information on the B-29A designation is also incorrect. IIRC, the designation B-29A was given to those B-29's built in Wichita, KS but I'll have to check my sources on that before committing 100% to it. It's been awhile since I've dabbled in B-29's.

HTH

TimC

Great pics Tim, hmm! it does show the tunnel dead center doesn't it. I wonder where I got that bit wrong, I'm sure I read or was told that it was offset. Also I think you are right about the A designation, they were built in Wichita. In the book Ruin from the Air it mentions that Tibbets went to Wichita to personally pick out the bomber he was going to use on the first raid.

Robert

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According to my references B-29As were built at the Boeing Renton plant The Silverplate (Atomic Bombers) were built at the Martin-Omaha plant. The B-29B was built at the Bell-Marietta plant. The other B-29s were built at the Boeing Seattle or Wichita plant.

The noticable changes were Curtis Electric propellers and deletion of all but the tail armaments. The other modifications were internal.

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