Official FlightLine 1600mm B-25J Mitchell PNP Thread

[davegee]

Hi Fast N Light: great ideas there! I have printed up the exhaust header covers already, not knowing you had already designed them and put them on Thingiverse. They came out great!

I've settled on a glazed nose version of the B-25 I mentioned in a previous post, but I love the solid nosed B-25 covers with machine guns that you have come out with. If I ever get another B-25 after this one, or change the version of the one I'm waiting on delivery on Monday, I'll definitely use your designs on those. I'll probably do something like what you show for bomb racks later down the road when I get this plane together and some flights on it.

Thanks for all your magnificent designs.

Cheers

Davegee

While waiting for my B-25 to arrive via FedEx tomorrow, I printed a few items I plan to use on my plane on occasion. These are bombs and a bomb rack, and a tray to put small parachute items in so they hopefully don't snag on the airplane coming out of the bomb bay.

These designs are courtesy of Fast N Light. The bombs have holes drilled through them and mount onto 12 aluminum 1/8" diameter tubes. When the bomb bay doors open, they will fall out by gravity. Or that's the plan, I'm thinking it will work. Per Fast N Light, a 3 g. M5 screw 16mm long is screwed into the top to give it more stability and realism during the drop to the ground. You can drop from 1 to 12 bombs simultaneously. I have 6 made up now for Initial tests. I'll try to drop them in the ground just off to the side of the runway so that they don't break and I can find them again!

The tray that I printed up is designed to put soft items in, like parachutes. The hope is that they will fall out of the bomb bay without getting caught on some structure of the airplane.

The aircraft I am going to replicate, Cactus Kitten, was in a unit in the Pacific Theater that did strictly low level work; strafing and low altitude bombing. One thing I read they did was tie a parachute onto bombs that were going to be dropped at very low altitudes, hopefully giving them enough time to escape without "fragging" themselves on their own bombs! Unfortunately, this happened many times to pilots and aircraft doing dive bombing and low altitude bombing during WWII.

I'm hoping my B-25 will be ready for its maiden flight sometime this upcoming week. Once I have a few successful flights on it, I'll add the bombs and other scale details to the plane. I'll post developments here as they happen.

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

Davegee,

Both FW-190 and Tigercat require 40%+ throttle on landing leg to a 2-point landing , I don't want to get behind the curve and stall. learning more about throttle management each flight and know the Corsair requires this also.
Today club had a display at our city airport day and the airport manager asked me to taxi my Corsair ( have a sound system installed) around the display area for people to see a model and hear a P&W sound. Pretty neat w/lots of videos being taken. Most people didn't realize the complexity that can be involved in this hobby.

A Day in Paradise, Rex

How Fun!! And How Fun for all who got to see and hear your Corsair!! Well Done!!👍👍👍

[jetfool]

Davegee,

Both FW-190 and Tigercat require 40%+ throttle on landing leg to a 2-point landing , I don't want to get behind the curve and stall. learning more about throttle management each flight and know the Corsair requires this also.
Today club had a display at our city airport day and the airport manager asked me to taxi my Corsair ( have a sound system installed) around the display area for people to see a model and hear a P&W sound. Pretty neat w/lots of videos being taken. Most people didn't realize the complexity that can be involved in this hobby.

A Day in Paradise, Rex

[davegee]

Glad you're having fun flying with your friends, Rex. I used to have that in Denver, but up here in Cody I pretty much fly by myself, which is fine, too. I was going to fly this morning, every flag was still driving through town, but once I got to the field it was out of limits to take up my F-15 or Beech 18 without possibly damaging them. I'll wait for another less-windy day.

I had a pretty small F-35A and then a Red Arrows Hawk for a very short time. They are pretty small, and I had nothing but problems with them, especially landing on our rough runway. I had to "harvest" both of them and will not fly another little jet again, like those. This B-25 should be fun being so much larger with good compressible gear to handle the potholes and other defects in our runway. The larger 90mm jets work out much better for me to fly than the little ones.

Have a great weekend! I hope you get to fly that Corsair sometime when you find the time is right to do so. I think you'll find it maybe not a *****cat, but not as bad as you might think. The biggest thing on landings that I can think of is carrying power into the landing right up to touchdown in a two-point, tail low attitude. With my Robart tire mod from stock tires, virtually every landing "sticks" with no bounce. A really great plane and well designed by Flightline.

Best,

Dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,

Doing well here. I have flown more this year than I ever have. Our small club now has 18 members and its more fun with good company, 3-4 days each week. I'm flying the Tigercat and FW 190 and learning how to get my glide scope using throttle more than elev. before flaring on landing. Flaps on tigercat really slows it down but steady as a rock, this plane is really a *****cat. Corsair is next for first test flight and hoping it has similar landing qualities. These larger scale foam planes gives me a better feel on the sticks vs my sport planes.

Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

Congratulations on your purchase of the B-25. I'm sure you will do it justice. If Flite-line doesn't offer a new WW2 plane this fall this might be my X-MAS present. I'd do a dirty SW Pacific version.

Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. Mine is a subject from that Theatre. I'm trying to come up with printing some cool bomb racks that would allow the bombs to exit the plane in a more realistic manor. Still hung up on some details of how to get my printer to do that, but I hope to be successful at it in time.

I found it interesting doing some research that most of the MTO B-25s (Mediterranean) were modified as higher level bombers and they removed the fuselage side guns as a result on the J models. However, in the Pacific Theatre, the J models retained those guns as the plan for these airplanes was low level bombing and strafing missions. The aircraft that I am replicating, Cactus Kitten, was lost on a low level bombing run on enemy ships near Saigon, Indochina (now Vietnam) with all hands lost, unfortunately.

The plane really looks great from the MRC website photos. I haven't seen one in person yet, so I'm champing at the bit to see it when it arrives via FedEx on Monday! Already have Callie working on the specific markings I need for the plane.

Hope all is well with you.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

I have several 3DP components for the B-25 posted and one still in work. Links are below

Exhaust Header Covers

Bomb Bay DoDads

Turret Gunner Figure

Scale Wheels

Still in work with ECD late 2024
Gunship Nose & Upgraded Barrels

Hi Fast N Light: great ideas there! I have printed up the exhaust header covers already, not knowing you had already designed them and put them on Thingiverse. They came out great!

I've settled on a glazed nose version of the B-25 I mentioned in a previous post, but I love the solid nosed B-25 covers with machine guns that you have come out with. If I ever get another B-25 after this one, or change the version of the one I'm waiting on delivery on Monday, I'll definitely use your designs on those. I'll probably do something like what you show for bomb racks later down the road when I get this plane together and some flights on it.

Thanks for all your magnificent designs.

Cheers

Davegee

[Elbee]

I have several 3DP components for the B-25 posted and one still in work. Links are below Still in work with ECD late 2024.

FNL, ahh, a builder/designer after my own heart.

Very nicely done and thank you for your effort and the STL files.
Your picture showing all of the previous variants of the nose is very familiar to me.

It is part(s) of the process. Again, great work.

Best as always, LB

[Fast N Light]

I have several 3DP components for the B-25 posted and one still in work. Links are below

Exhaust Header Covers

Bomb Bay DoDads

Turret Gunner Figure

Scale Wheels

Still in work with ECD late 2024
Gunship Nose & Upgraded Barrels

[jetfool]

Congratulations on your purchase of the B-25. I'm sure you will do it justice. If Flite-line doesn't offer a new WW2 plane this fall this might be my X-MAS present. I'd do a dirty SW Pacific version.

Best Regards, Rex

[davegee]

davegee the only other place you might be able to find an STL file for this I can think of could be cgtrader. Give it a whirl. Best, LB

https://www.cgtrader.com/

thanks, Elbee. I will do that for other ideas for this model and anything else I'd like to print up. I did play with the Thingiverse site a little more with those nacelle fairings that I couldn't print up before, but this time I was able to do it. I have them printing now, and I'll see how it goes. With this model idea of using Cactus Kitten, they do have the fairings on the nacelles on this version of the aircraft , so if they print up ok, I should be in business.

Thanks,

Davegee

[Elbee]

davegee the only other place you might be able to find an STL file for this I can think of could be cgtrader. Give it a whirl. Best, LB

https://www.cgtrader.com/

[davegee]

Hi All: I pushed the button on buying a new B-25J yesterday. I plan on using a markings scheme from a real B-25J Cactus Kitten that flew in the Pacific Theater. On April 28, 1945, on a bombing mission of shipping targets near Saigon, Indochina, they were hit by antiaircraft fire and the plane crashed, killing all 5 crewmembers.

I haven't ever had a B-25 model before so this will be fun. I'll use most of the original stock paint scheme with minor changes for Cactus Kitten.

I'd like to add some printed details like the extra fairings on the nacelles and anything else that might be appropriate. I haven't been able to download the nacelle fairings up for some reason. Does anyone have a link or place to go to find STLs that I could download for some detail additions to add to the airplane? I really didn't find any on Cults3D, Thingiverse, or Printables.com. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places?

Thanks,

Davegee

[MrSmoothie]

I should have included this link -- some similar posts: https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc...read?q=beeping


This is so strange. I helped my father repair the nose gear/retract on his B-25 after a landing that was just short of the runway. I was testing the retracts by taking the "retract lead" from the blue box and plugging it into a separate Rx/BEC from that in the model that I use for testing. Reaching under the fuselage to do one final test, I went to connect the EC5 plugs (lipo to my separate Rx) and somehow managed to touch them backwards (don't even ask me how this is possible). I felt like an idiot when smoke came out of the right hand nacelle.

We pulled that ESC, and got a replacement from Motion. The replacement has an additional yellow lead that the original did not have. Based on the brochure, it didn't look like it served any purpose.

Today we were ready to test the model. Powered up, and did a range check. The we did some taxi tests, brought it back to the pit to adjust the nose steering linkage (lipo disconnected), then did some additional taxi tests. All was well, and I handed the Tx to Dad. He goes to take off, and neither motor turns and each ESC emits a steady beep. On a whim, we tried rebinding the Rx, but no change. I'm not kidding, after all the taxi tests, it was the instant before the first post-goof flight.

Why are RIGHT side ESC's burning up? Has anybody learned anything new?

I also wonder why, on Flightline twins, you don't have to disconnect the center wire of one ESC, as you typically do on twin ARF builds.

[Evan D]

The yellow wire is to have reverse thrust.

[MrSmoothie]

Similar: https://www.hobbysquawk.com/forum/rc...read?q=beeping

This is so strange. I helped my father repair the nose gear/retract on his B-25 after a landing that was just short of the runway. I was testing the retracts by taking the "retract lead" from the blue box and plugging it into a separate Rx/BEC from that in the model that I use for testing. Reaching under the fuselage to do one final test, I went to connect the EC5 plugs (lipo to my separate Rx) and somehow managed to touch them backwards (don't even ask me how this is possible). I felt like an idiot when smoke came out of the right hand nacelle.

We pulled that ESC, and got a replacement from Motion. The replacement has an additional yellow lead that the original did not have. Based on the brochure, it didn't look like it served any purpose.

Today we were ready to test the model. Powered up, and did a range check. The we did some taxi tests, brought it back to the pit to adjust the nose steering linkage (lipo disconnected), then did some additional taxi tests. All was well, and I handed the Tx to Dad. He goes to take off, and neither motor turns and each ESC emits a steady beep. On a whim, we tried rebinding the Rx, but no change. I'm not kidding, after all the taxi tests, it was the instant before the first post-goof flight.

Why are RIGHT side ESC's burning up? Has anybody learned anything new?

I also wonder why, on Flightline twins, you don't have to disconnect the center wire of one ESC, as you typically do on twin ARF builds.

[Elbee]

Bomber pilot, Welcome to Hobby Squawk, Sir, and Good Luck with your first check flight. Best, LB

[Bomber pilot]

Can’t wait to fly my B25 I have to practice fly a styro spitfire first a lot before l even think of flying the Bomber

[LucB]

How difficult is this plane to fly with some experience?

It is not difficult to fly, thanks to the 2 engines (I have more difficulties with my single engine electric planes). But you need to remember that it needs to fly a bit faster than scale speed.
Here is what I do for the championship (keeping in mind that I have to be as scale as possible):
throttle stick at 55% is the low limit to fly safe. Apply more power for take off and let it roll to get the required speed (75% throttle).
The low rates are my max rates, 60% expo.
In normal condition, windy or not, there is more power than needed and I fly it like a hunter.

Extra note: my new B-25 came with V2 version of the Esc. These have an additional wire which seems to be for the reverse.

[Fast N Light]

I have some experience with various planes. The craziest I have I flown are the Lippisch, a timber x and the little voodoo p51 and have a bunch of easier planes. How difficult is this plane to fly with some experience? The realflight has a nitro B25 and I’d say it flys quite nice. I wanna get one but aren’t sure I have enough experience yet.

Seems like a significant step up in size from those listed. It requires power to fly it to the ground.
Buddy box with a proficient flyer and you could learn to handle it.