MOC: 'Slow Starter', a B-26 Marauder bomber

[Ralph_S]

Those of you who hang out on flickr may know that currently the flickr LEGO military group is hosting a build contest. It has a number of categories, including one for WW-II aircraft models. Since I have recently developed a bit of an interest in planes from that time period, I felt I had to build something for it.

So, here it is: Slow Starter, a B-26B Marauder bomber used by the US Army Air Force in Europe.

Pictures are links.

more pictures

I'm quite happy with the end result and felt like sharing it with the Eurobricks community. I hope you'll like it.

Cheers,

Ralph

Edited July 24, 2011 by Rufus
Indexed

[Guss]

I felt I had to build something for it.

And you were right, you totally HAD to ! ^^ that's a really great moc you made, it really looks like the original. great job on it!

[TenorPenny]

Lovely build. I like your colour choices, specifically.

[Ralph_S]

And you were right, you totally HAD to ! ^^ that's a really great moc you made, it really looks like the original. great job on it!

Thanks Guss. I had a lot of trouble choosing what plane to build, because they all have their difficulties, but I kept coming back to a B-26 because the real plane has such a lovely streamlined shape. I'm glad you like it.

Lovely build. I like your colour choices, specifically.

Thank you. The real 'Slow Starter' was dark olive over unpainted metal. Old dark grey and light blueish grey seemed to be the colours LEGO makes/ made that come the closest to that (short of using pearlescent grey or silver grey). I chose to model this particular aircraft because I liked the nose-art and the contrast between the red highlights and the greyness of the rest of the plane.

Cheers,

Ralph

[DoctorDude234]

Nice!!

Very cool. Looks like an official Lego set.

Since I'm no military expert, I have to ask: What are the transparent pieces on the nose for? I don't mean the cockpit canpoy, but the thing in front of it.

[Natman8000]

Wow, it looks even better than a model kit. Excellently built, I like how you made use of the clear parts to make the cockpits. You should get a contract with LEGO, and have them sell your models as advanced model making kits. I would buy them for sure.

[Bartram]

That looks simply stunning! It must have taken a long time to build!

Awesome job

[Ralph_S]

That looks simply stunning! It must have taken a long time to build!

Awesome job

Thanks. It did take quite a while. I had a six-day break at Easter and spent most of my waking hours on five of those days building this model. I then had it sitting unfinished on my desk for a few weeks before I made the last decals and finally took pictures.

Wow, it looks even better than a model kit. Excellently built, I like how you made use of the clear parts to make the cockpits. You should get a contract with LEGO, and have them sell your models as advanced model making kits. I would buy them for sure.

That would be pretty neat, but I fear that my models are much more fragile than anything you could ever sell to anybody and then there's the issue that they don't make old dark grey any more...

Nice!!

Very cool. Looks like an official Lego set.

Since I'm no military expert, I have to ask: What are the transparent pieces on the nose for? I don't mean the cockpit canpoy, but the thing in front of it.

Many planes from that era had a bombardier/navigator sit in the nose who could look outside through the transparent nosecone and identify landmarks (roads, rivers, railway lines, cities) to help keep the plane on course. They had very few electronic means of navigating at the time. On bombers in particular it would also be the position for an optical bombsight (the famous Norden bombsight). It was a combination of a telescope and a mechanical computer. The bombardier could aim the telescope at a target on the ground. The computer would keep it aimed at the target, would fly the plane (through the plane's autopilot) and would drop the bombs at the correct moment to hit the target.

Cheers,

Ralph