XB-7   TACTICAL NUCLEAR BOMBER

A "Blinder" of an Idea!



Using the Italeri 1:72 scale kit of the Russian TU-22 “Blinder” aircraft as a basis, a futuristic version of a nuclear bomber was created.

With a beautifully designed fuselage that needed very little embellishment, the Russian TU-22 became the ZB-7 bomber by firstly working on the crew and cockpit, most of which would be unseen in the final model.

The black canards were borrowed from an old SR-71 aircraft and grafted on with Araldite and car putty. After positioning the cockpit crew into place, the fuselage halves were joined and the wings added. I decided to leave the wings where they were, rather than reposition them, as they looked futuristic already.

To make the aircraft look even more futuristic, I measured up two layers of 2mm sheet styrene, cut them out, laminated them together and proceeded to hack and cut them down into the shape I required. This “overwing” had to fit the existing fuselage–wing assembly. Once I was happy with the shape, it was sanded smooth and Araldited firmly into place. The jet engines either side of the rear fuselage were left as is.

The undercarriage sections were used as they were, however to add a little more realism to them, I replaced the wheels themselves with some toy car ones so they would actually turn. More fun that way! The undercarriage sections were strengthened with brass rod and tube Superglued along the different lengths.

After many coats of primer grey and sanding, the entire aircraft was sprayed with acrylic Winter White used for cars. The white was masked off and the upper surfaces sprayed with Platinum Medium, another car paint. The jet engines were sprayed separately and added later. Now began the arduous task of drawing on hundreds of panel lines with a fine pen, as well as adding decals and various strips of pinstripe tape to give detail to the model.