Billy Mitchell Was Right

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
AAM-140524-023-A.jpg

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...
b25j_1_3v.jpg

Here is what I have so far...
20200505_211155.jpg
These are top and side profiles of the fuse. These will be mostly for size and fit, I am sure I will be making changes along the build process, adding and omitting things as it happens. But for the most part this will give me a good idea of the dimensions of the build. Speaking of dimensions the fuse has worked out to be 5 3/4" tall, 4" wide, and 42" long. There is a 12" ruler sitting between the two drawings for scale.
20200505_211305.jpg This is a pic of the front view if you are curious...

Next is the wing...
20200505_211440.jpg

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.
 

OliverW

Legendary member
View attachment 168175
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...
View attachment 168179
Here is what I have so far...
View attachment 168176 These are top and side profiles of the fuse. These will be mostly for size and fit, I am sure I will be making changes along the build process, adding and omitting things as it happens. But for the most part this will give me a good idea of the dimensions of the build. Speaking of dimensions the fuse has worked out to be 5 3/4" tall, 4" wide, and 42" long. There is a 12" ruler sitting between the two drawings for scale.
View attachment 168177 This is a pic of the front view if you are curious...

Next is the wing... View attachment 168178
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.
Damn my friend! Your really going all out! She's gonna look beautiful once your done with her!
 

The Hangar

Fly harder!
Mentor
View attachment 168175
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...
View attachment 168179
Here is what I have so far...
View attachment 168176 These are top and side profiles of the fuse. These will be mostly for size and fit, I am sure I will be making changes along the build process, adding and omitting things as it happens. But for the most part this will give me a good idea of the dimensions of the build. Speaking of dimensions the fuse has worked out to be 5 3/4" tall, 4" wide, and 42" long. There is a 12" ruler sitting between the two drawings for scale.
View attachment 168177 This is a pic of the front view if you are curious...

Next is the wing... View attachment 168178
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.
Awesome! Definitely following the build!
 

Flitedesign 3d

Elite member
View attachment 168175
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...
View attachment 168179
Here is what I have so far...
View attachment 168176 These are top and side profiles of the fuse. These will be mostly for size and fit, I am sure I will be making changes along the build process, adding and omitting things as it happens. But for the most part this will give me a good idea of the dimensions of the build. Speaking of dimensions the fuse has worked out to be 5 3/4" tall, 4" wide, and 42" long. There is a 12" ruler sitting between the two drawings for scale.
View attachment 168177 This is a pic of the front view if you are curious...

Next is the wing... View attachment 168178
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.
Looks great so far, the B-25 is definitely the best looking ww2 twin along with the C-47. Keep it up
 

Apple Pie

Elite member
Holy crap am I excited about this one! And as luck would have it, I have been designing a B-25 as well and cut out 8 sheet of foam yesterday on the needle cutter to start the build process :) Mine will be 1.85m wingspan, 3536 powered on 3S 5000mah with 11" props. Functioning bomb bay doors sized to hold two cans of beer perfectly, in case a friend in need requires an emergency delivery one day :) Design process was to take 3D views and design the frame and formers in my CNC software Vcarve, then over to Fusion 360 with the formers to model the skins then over to Meshmixer to flatten the skins and back to Vcarve to cut the skins. Pretty slick once the technical kinks are worked out. Here's a few screenshots for entertainment value from Vcarve and Fusion360 for the nose cowling skins. I will make a full set of plans available when I'm all finished up and have a functioning prototype built if anyone is interested.

@BATTLEAXE I'm super excited to follow your build! Sorry to barge in on your build thread. I'll start a separate one for mine when I get a little further along.
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Apple Pie

Elite member
Hey do you guys have any good links to find some 9 or 10" 3 blade props, CW and CCW?
I ordered a bunch of props from Hobbyking a while back and they showed up in YYC about two months later. It works but its slow. I recently ordered some 4 blade 4" and 5" props from them to work on my own BDF to power an A-10 but I haven't seen anything yet. Here's a link for your reading pleasure for some 9 and 10"

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/catalogsearch/result/?q=three blade 10 inch prop
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
Holy crap am I excited about this one! And as luck would have it, I have been designing a B-25 as well and cut out 8 sheet of foam yesterday on the needle cutter to start the build process :) Mine will be 1.85m wingspan, 3536 powered on 3S 5000mah with 11" props. Functioning bomb bay doors sized to hold two cans of beer perfectly, in case a friend in need requires an emergency delivery one day :) Design process was to take 3D views and design the frame and formers in my CNC software Vcarve, then over to Fusion 360 with the formers to model the skins then over to Meshmixer to flatten the skins and back to Vcarve to cut the skins. Pretty slick once the technical kinks are worked out. Here's a few screenshots for entertainment value from Vcarve and Fusion360 for the nose cowling skins. I will make a full set of plans available when I'm all finished up and have a functioning prototype built if anyone is interested.

@BATTLEAXE I'm super excited to follow your build! Sorry to barge in on your build thread. I'll start a separate one for mine when I get a little further along.
View attachment 168206 View attachment 168204
Thats awesome, attracting some B-25 fans! Yours sounds like its going to be sweet bird as well. Feel free to post all your progress here, dont start a new thread. I would like to learn from yours as well. Post away my friend. Rock it up
 

BATTLEAXE

Legendary member
Master airscrew has a good selection of CW and CCW triblades.
I want to go with Master Airscrew. I looked on the FT store and the regular props dont have a CW CCW option. However they do have pusher and regular props, would that work? I know i have compared the APC pusher props to regular ones and they aren't symmetrical in shape to each other. Would this this be the same for Master Airscrew?
 

Grifflyer

WWII fanatic
I want to go with Master Airscrew. I looked on the FT store and the regular props dont have a CW CCW option. However they do have pusher and regular props, would that work? I know i have compared the APC pusher props to regular ones and they aren't symmetrical in shape to each other. Would this this be the same for Master Airscrew?
I'm guessing the pusher prop spins the opposite way, but I didn't really look closely. I'll go check.