So one of my favourite planes is the B-36. Yes, I know it had a lot of engine problems, but it's such a bizarre aircraft to look at. Fortunately there's still a few of those around in various museums.
Unfortunately, the arguably even weirder YB-60 didn't share the same luxury. And no decent quality colour photos of this monster of a plane exist.
So since I apparently have nothing better to do in my spare time, I decided to challenge myself with a bit of photo restoration. And about 10 hours (in total over the course of a few days) later colouring in things in, repairing abnormalities and using an AI upscale tool (for a bit of an HD look), I present to you a colour restored Black and white photo of the YB-60:
Granted, it's not perfect and I couldn't find a lot of information on the colour of the hanger, uniforms of the people, etc and I'll probably end up tweaking it in the future. But, I feel like it's at a point where I'm happy to put it to one side.
For reference, here's the original:
Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed restoring it. Also, a small thank you to the fish and EternalDarkness for helping me decide whether the Lockheed Electra had an orange belly or not. It's surprisingly hard to guess colour changes on shiny surfaces.
@Squirrel he's a bot, also, it's been awhile squirrel that doesn't look like a squirrel
@DanielBrawner most of the work went into trying to work out what colours everything needed to be. From memory, it didn't take me much more than an afternoon, but it honestly depends how much detail you want to go into. I simplified it by grouping colours by material, but in reality, there's variance in everything depending on the age of the material, how long it's been weathered for, etc.
So it could be better... But I had and still have the attention span of ferret. So it is what it is.
The design getting over it is so perfect. How long did it take you to complete this drawing?
This is amazing! my father was on one he felt like “it was a castle in the sky”
@Spuirrel
Where is the colored version of the photo?
@Squirrel
have you heard of the monstrous B-36 "peac-(realizes that is what the post is about)
so why aren't their pics of the B-36?
@CptJacobson thank you!
Well this is certainly impressive I must say you did a dang fine job
YB-60 was competitor with B-52. @Brields95
Good job!
The YB-60 was directly related to the development of the B-52 i believe
Is there a xb 60 on the website
The B-36 is a really cool craft. They even put a nuclear reactor in it once (though it was more of a proof-of-concept idea and wasn’t connected to anything).
It looks 3D modeled
very nice