Howard Hughes Boeing 100 racer -first mod- completed

Here is Howard Hughes Boeing 100 racer -in its first incarnation- completed.

The building article can be seen here in this same blog:

http://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2013/09/converting-boeing-f4b-4-to-howard.html

My thanks again to Tim Nelson who generously passed along the kit.

There is a great deal of pondering regarding the colors of this racer, and no opinion has been so far verified with hard data, so here is my own theory:

a) Boeing delivery colors of the time where green and orange (with light grey when applied)

b) Hughes Tool Co company logo of the time was not blue, as Paul Matt assumed for his determination of the racer's colors, but Red/Yellow instead, as seen in contemporary company material. Around Hughes death, this was changed to blue (decades after the Boeing 100 was painted).

c) Hughes jacket as seen in the B and W photos in front of the machine was probably dark blue with white pants as per common use of those garments. It is clear that the color of the fuselage is a much lighter hue and not therefore "dark blue" as again stated by Matt.

d) One of the later incarnations of the machine (Art Goebel's "Skywriter") was undoubtedly green and orange as color photos prove. Did Art choose those colors, or where they just the colors he inherited with the plane? The B & W photos of that plane show a gray gradation very much alike the ones taken during Hughes ownership.

e) Hughes’ Boeing 100 as we know was deeply altered two times, once by Douglas and then by Lockheed. The reg was X247K. That reg changed later on variously to NC, NR and N.

f) Two shades are easily perceived in the photos: a darker hue for the fuselage and a lighter one for the tail feathers and wings. The engine shield in all photos appears to be an even darker shade (red? black?)

g) The regs on the first Hughes mod on the tail are probably black -again as per photos-; no regs are unfortunately clearly seen on the wings.

I'd like to posit to you (since the "blue" -Paul Matt’s choice- is hereby called into question) that the plane was indeed painted in a variation of the Green and Yellow colors, used at the beginning AND much later during the time when color photos of the plane were taken, with black regs.

 

Boeing 100 Paul Mantz completed

Finally completed: 1/72 scale model of the Boeing 100 owned by Paul Mantz; made with the RarePlane’s RareBits (Gordon Stevens) vac fuselage conversion and the Monogram F4B-4 kit, both generously and kindly passed along by PugetMeister Jim Schubert.

The plane performed in many movies and events, and had a smoke-generating apparatus.

It went through a few changes during its very long life; it is portrayed here in one of its several configurations.

Thanks to Gordon and Jim, both modeling icons.

The complete step-by-step building article is in this same blog here:

http://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2013/09/172-rareplane-rarebits-p-12b-conversion.html