By the mid-seventies model building was such an insatiable hobby for me, I just had to build airplane kits wherever I went. One Saturday, my Mom and I drove up to Oxnard to visit my Aunt Doris. I guess I didn't have an unbuilt kit to take with me, so my Mom said we would stop somewhere in Oxnard and pick one up before we got to her sister's house. We ended up in a small discount store that had only a few model kits; the Revell 1974 reissue Boeing B-29 Superfortress being one of them. I chose it, my Mom bought it for me, and I slapped it together in short order at my aunt's house. At the time, I did not know this kit had been around since the mid-1950s.
The B-29 "Dauntless Dotty" was one of Revell's earliest model airplane kits. It was part of a series of Air Force strategic bombers including the B-36, B-47, and B-52, all odd scale to fit in a standard size box. The B-29 and B-52C kits soldiered on through the 70s, and the B-29 even went on to be reissued again in 1980. It is very basic; no landing gear, over-sized rivets, over-sized propeller blades, and other numerous scale inaccuracies. This was not meant to be a precision scale model however, but a good-looking model a kid of the 1950s could build in an afternoon, without any painting.
On this rebuild, I hand painted the black de-icer boots, prop blades and tips. The canopy section has framework lines engraved on the inside, which make them look painted - almost. I chose not to paint it, but leave as is.
This is not one of my favorite models, but it is a rather historic kit in the Revell Catalog, and brings back good memories of that visit to Oxnard.
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