Alaska B-29s

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/soh_ftp/...4892574647.JPG
A new entry has been added to Add-Ons Library, category FS 2004 Military skins - Cold War

Description: A skin for Gnoopy's B-29 Superfortress depicting either an EB-29 or an RB-29 of the U.S. Air Force's 46th Reconnaissance Squadron, Alaska Air Command, based at Ladd AFB in Alaska in 1948 for ferret missions against the air defenses of the Soviet north and east coasts and strategic photo reconnaissance missions over the Soviet far east.

For an RB-29 use the CFS-2 model with turrets. For an EB-29 use the FS9 model without turrets. Either model and this skin will work in both FS9 and CFS2. (For you rivet counters, the serial number is correct for an RB-29.)

From photos in a series about early cold war operations in Alaska that appeared in the Journal of the American Aviation Historical Association.

Paint job by Mick, based in Morton's base textures from the Korean War skin pack.

To check it out, rate it or add comments, visit EB-29 RB-29 Superfort 46th RS.zip
The comments you make there will appear in the posts below.

I don't know of there's any interest here in the early Cold War, but if there is, some might like the skin I posted yesterday for an EB- or RB-29 based in Alaska in the late 1940s. When I posted it I wrote in the description that it should work in either FS9 or CFS-2.

What I should've said is that it will work on either the FS9 (no turrets) or the CFS-2 (turrets) models - in FS9. It dawned on me after the skin appeared on the download list that someone told me long ago that CFS-2 can't "see" 32-bit textures.

If anyone is interested enough to convert the skin to a format that CFS-2 can read, please feel free to do so and put your conversion in the library. There's no need to ask permission. All I ask is that you put in the ReadMe file, as I did with my upload, that the skins are based on work by Morton and his restriction that his skins not be posted anywhere but here at SOH should be honored

Hi Mick,

Absolutely! It'll go with an F-94 released recently in colors for Elmdorf (?) AFB, AK.

Kind regards,

TW

http://i.imgur.com/UpeNDbu.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/r2b4XXc.jpg

Thanks for the skin Mick :biggrin-new:

PS...to anyone interested, the conversion is simple with imagetool. Just convert the main skin textures - nothing else needed - to 16bit 565 and you're done in less time than it takes to download and install a CFS2 skin update on this.

A beautiful plane and outstanding pics Bearcat! :applause:

My mother-in-law and father-in -law put those babies together in Wichita, KS. They were working there when the 1000th was completed in February 1945.
She was "Elva the Riveter" :adoration::US-flag:

I just put up another arctic Superfort, this one meant to work with the FS9 no-turret model. This one has the black undersides and the early style of arctic red that went over the control surfaces as well as the fixed surfaces. I suppose that model works in CFS-2. If not, and one didn't mind having inappropriate turrets, the skin could be converted to work with the CFS-2 model. So feel free to convert that one too if you wish.

There was a lot going on up there in the far north in those days,and much of it hasn't been written about until fairly recently. The Journal of the AAHS has been running an occasional series of articles on early cold war operations in the arctic, most of which was highly classified for many years. I don't know if there are any more articles to come in the series. I hope so! It's been fascinating reading and it's given me several colorful classic era Air Force skins.

Thanks Mick, these look great. I enjoy much of your work flying in CFS2

msfossey

Mick,

Very unusual and welcome repaint; thanks for sharing this with the CFS2 folks! :very_drunk:

You're very welcome.

I thought of alerting the CFS-2 folks because the B-29 with turrets was released as a CFS-2 model, though it works fine in FS9.

In my Classic Era sim I have that skin I assigned to both the turrets and no turrets models, as the 46th RS flew both EB- and RB-29s in the same colors and markings. There is an interesting photo of an RB, armed with turrets, escorting a turretless EB- over some trackless arctic wasteland, presumably somehwhere in Soviet Siberia.

Some of those planes carried names and/or nose art, which would call for separate skins for an EB- and an RB-, but even if I had the talent to paint the artwork, which I don't have, all the photos that show those features are in black & white, so the colors are a mystery, probably lost to history. Ain't that always the way?! So I just painted one of the anonymous planes, as shown in all of the few color photos.