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Backdating a 1/72 Williams Brothers Boeing 247

By John Newcome

Background

When it was introduced in 1933, the Boeing 247 was the most advanced passenger aircraft in service.  Its design incorporated such innovative features such as all metal monocoque construction, retractable landing gear and auto-pilot to name a few.  While it is commonly known as the “First Modern Airliner”, it may also be viewed as one of the most successful financial failures of all time.  Boeing never made a profit on the 247 but the lessons learned influenced later Boeing designs like the B-17.  The designer of the B-17, Ed Wells, was just beginning his career with Boeing when the 247 was developed.

When the 247 was introduced, the Boeing Conglomerate included Pratt&Whitney, Boeing Aircraft , and United Airlines.  The final design for the 247 was a compromise between these three corporate branches of Boeing.  It was conceived as a replacement for the Boeing Model 40 for mail delivery, where speed and mail payload were the primary concerns in winning mail contracts.  Many within Boeing wanted a larger aircraft to be built.  However, those favoring a smaller 10 passenger aircraft ultimately prevailed.   Boeing had planned to build a larger passenger aircraft later to replace the aging Model 80’s.  Unfortunately the larger passenger aircraft never materialized until after WW2.

When Jack Frye of TWA tried to order the 247 for TWA, United Airlines objected to Boeing selling this aircraft to a competitor.  In short, Frye was turned down and was told he would have to wait unil the initial orders primarily for United, Boeing Air Transport and Pacific Air Transport (all owned by Boeing) had been delivered.  This prompted Frye to turn to another aircraft manufacturer in Santa Monica California, Douglas Aircraft.  Douglas responded to Frye’s specifications by producing a larger, 18 passenger, all metal design; the DC-1 which eventually evolved into the DC-3.    We can only speculate if the DC-3 we know today would have been produced if Boeing had agreed to sell the 247 to TWA.

United’s competitive edge lasted for about a year until the DC-3 entered service in 1934.  Ironically, United was forced to replace the 247’s on its main routes with the DC-3’s in order to remain competitive.  United relegated the 247’s to its feeder routes.  Eventually, the 247’s found their niche with smaller regional and Latin American airlines.  Many 247’s enjoyed long and distinguished careers in this later capacity.   Total production ended in 1934 with 75 aircraft delivered.

The Kit

The Williams Brothers kit was first produced in 1970’s and is still in production.  To the best of my knowledge, in 1/72 scale, this is still the only game in town.  Some of the older kits are demanding high prices in the collector kit market.  The kit used for this article dates from the 1970’s and was an ebay find.  Due to it’s water damaged box, it was not a collectible but was a great kit to build. The kit consists of two sprues of grey plastic and gives the modeler the option to build either the passenger version or the racer version flown by Roscoe Turner in the McRobertson Race from Mildenhall, England to Melborne, Australia.  The modeler also has the option of either the early forward sloping windscreen or the later rear sloping windscreen.

Construction

The Williams Brothers kit depicts a 247D configuration.  The plan for this project was to backdate it to original configuration.  Initially, this seemed like an easy conversion until I realized what was involved to pull it off.  This conversion project required removal of the kit engine nacelles and scratchbuilding smaller ones with townend rings instead of cowlings.  I also removed the rudder and stabilizers, reconfigured the rudder hinge line with scratch built hinges.  Finally, the kit engines were replaced with resin P&W Wasp engines and crankcase covers from Czech Master Resin.

Construction begins with the cockpit and passenger cabin.  It is fairly straight forward and poses no issues other than careful fitting of the bulkheads.  After the fuselage was closed, I proceeded to the wings where the bulk of this project takes place.

Before assembling the wing halves together, I painted the inside with flat black.  This enabled be to more easily see the cut edges of the removed nacelles and also made the empty wheel wells less noticeable.  After the wings were assembled, I got out my razor saw and removed the nacelles.  The top cut line was at the rear of the nacelle just foreward of the final fairing piece at the rear.  The bottom cut line was at the leading edge of the wing in order to preserve the wheel wells.  Using calipers and 1/72 drawings, I determined the diameter of the original nacelle and made styrene disks of that diameter.  These were used as the front and rear of the nacelle with styrene strips used for framing.  The built up framing was then covered with styrene sheet based on the approximate panel lines of the original.

Since the revised nacelles were considerably smaller, the large resulting gaps were filled and faired in using Milliput.  The original 247 had a series of half-round louvers on each side of the nacelle.  These were depicted using soft aluminum from the tops of wine bottles.  It took me three bottles of wine before I had some louvers that looked decent.  I’m not totally satisfied with the louvers on the final model and will continue to experiment with this technique.

The model was finished with Tamiya gray primer and Model Master acrylic neutral gray.  The original finish was anodized aluminum with an inconsistent grey-green hue for each individual panel.  A better finish would have resulted if I had depicted the various panel lines with a different hue of gray rather than a single color.  I was concerned that the model would look too busy with multiple hues of gray.  If I were to do this conversion again I would represent the individual panels.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Get your hands on one of these kits and build it!  It is not a weekend project by any means as there is a lot of fitting and “modeling” do be done.  However, you will be rewarded with a unique model of a significant historic aircraft that doesn’t show up a lot at model shows.  I am a great fan of Williams Brothers kits due to the unique subject matter they offer.  Thank you Daniel Brett, current owner of Williams Brothers, for resurrecting the company and continuing to offer these unique subjects.

Finally, a big thank you goes out to Jim Schubert.  Jim loaned me his personal data file on the 247, provided me with input and encouragement throughout the build and also procured the resin engine parts from CMR.  Jim’s help was invaluable.

References

• The Boeing 247 – The First Modern Airliner – F. Robert van der Linden
• Boeing 247 Data File – Jim Schubert Collection

Suppliers

• Czech Master Resin – Resin P&W Wasp engines and Crankcase covers https://www.cmrmodels.co.uk/
• Williams Brothers Models - https://www.williamsbrothersmodelproducts.com/