BATTLEAXE
Legendary member
Been busy lately starting a new job so my time has been limited lately, but this hobby has not been forgotten. Still with planes on the mind I have been inspired to try a B-25 "Mitchell". Historically this warbird/bomber was one of the most versatile planes of the Second World War on so many fronts. Most know them for the Doolittle Raid on Japan, the Pacific theatre, but they were also extensively used in Europe and North Africa. The crews heavily modified their own planes to suit the needs of the missions. Example, the plane pictured above you will notice the four 50 cals that are usually seen fixed to the side of the cockpit are missing, but this was a field modification at first to get more firepower to the ground for strafing. Soon after they were a preferred option offered by Boeing from factory. Other fronts included Vietnam and Korea as well.
Now normally I go at it just off the top of my head and wing it as I go. This time looking at the scale of the project i couldn't trust seeing the whole picture and having it all work out the first time. So I thought i would put some pencil to paper and sketch out a design that can as closely as possible stay true to scale yet not be to difficult given this will be my first twin. This is what I am using for reference...
Here is what I have so far...
This is a pic of the front view if you are curious...
Next is the wing...
These drawings are the latest of the wing, being this one is the third rendition, and there may soon be a fourth. I might change the spar locations for more stability, considering the weight of the motors hanging off the front of the nacelles, but that is where the main landing gear will be mounted under the nacelle as well. But this is the general idea. The box on the spar will be the location of the motor pod leaving enough room to swing up to a ten inch prop, might do 3 blade for authenticity.
Given this so far I won't be jumping into full on powered unit just yet, the first will be a prototype/wall hanger just work out the kinks in the design. Then if all goes well the second build will be the one that maidens. As far as the power system goes I want to use a pair of 2826, around 1200kv supported by a couple of 40-50 amp ESC's and the option to run either 3 or 4s. The details of the internals haven't been quite figured out yet but I thought this one would be fun to try some bomb doors and maybe cam mounts where the guns turrets would be.
All in all I am pretty excited about this one, I even ordered some new Racestar MG 9g servos for it. Getting tired of the TowerPro servos failing so I though I would upgrade to something better, over twice the price but it may be worth it in the long run. In the next couple weeks I will be ordering the rest of the electronics plus a new TX to get the ball rolling around here. Stay tuned
Thanks for reading, stay healthy and safe.