COBI Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress Set 5750

COBI's B-17G Flying Fortress is a 1:48 model built from 1,232 blocks, 49 cm long with a 66 cm wingspan, in the markings of the aircraft named Mary Alice. The propellers and ailerons move, the landing gear folds, the bomb bay doors open, and two pilot figures with detailed prints are included, along with a nameplate. No stickers.

Look under the nose

The G has a powered turret with two heavy machine guns beneath the nose, and earlier Fortresses did not. It is there because German fighter pilots found the one place the aircraft could barely shoot back.

A B-17 bristled with guns — that is where the name came from — but almost all of them covered the sides, the tail and above and below. Directly ahead there was one hand-held gun in the nose, awkward to aim. By late 1942 Luftwaffe units were attacking head-on, closing at a combined speed of around 800 km/h, which gave the gunners about two seconds and gave the attacker a shot straight into the cockpit.

The chin turret was the answer, and it worked: head-on attacks became far more expensive. It is the quickest way to tell a G from an F at a glance, and the reason more B-17Gs were built than every other variant combined.

In the COBI range

Set 5749 is the B-17F Memphis Belle, the earlier variant without the chin turret.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,232 · Figures: 2 pilots · Scale: 1:48 · No stickers
Model dimensions: 49 × 66 × 13 cm (19.3 × 26.0 × 5.1 in)