Fly4Real

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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Hey Guys, Just wanted to post my efforts over the last few days on a few details I added to my Zirolio B-25 101&rdquo; &ldquo;Miss B Havin&rdquo;. After flying the aircraft successfully, for a summer, there were a few details I wanted to add (will I ever get ALL of them added? Which reminds me of Dave Platts comment- &ldquo;We never finish a scale model, we finally abandon it&rdquo; - so true!)</span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">Detail #1 - Wing Headlights. I had a little trepidation about cutting into the wing&rsquo;s leading edge, but was relieved after doing it to find the construction very strong. It would have been better, and easier, to add this detail while building, but we purchased the model partially built. The headlight was created from an empty magic marker tube, right size and right color, black. Then I stuffed a round balsa dowel inside, CAed it and then drilled out the bowl shape with a Dremel tool. Aluminum foil was glued and burnished in, got a few wrinkles, but positioned them on the top side that won&rsquo;t be seen. Then bent wire from a bread tie in the shape of the filament. The assembly was then glued to a 1/8 piece of plywood that was then carefully positioned inside the wing between the two wing ribs. The &ldquo;glass&rdquo; was made from some clear tough plastic packaging that was &ldquo;pulled&rdquo; on the leading edge while applying a heat gun to slightly melt/form it to the wing shape. This was then dipped in Future floor polish to get rid of scratches and this stuff really works miracles to get plastic looking more glass like.</span>

Fly4Real

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Photos for above post....

Fly4Real

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Here they are...

Fly4Real

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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; ">The other details I added are the Shimmy Dampener on the front gear strut. This was made from several pieces of plastic tubing that was then CAed directly onto the strut. This is an important detail for a B-25 because I read that if the shimmy dampener didn&rsquo;t work, the shimming/vibration from the front wheel would shake the glass out of the front nose in 15 feet of taxiing.</span>

Fly4Real

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<p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 10.0px Helvetica"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">Since I was on a roll, I decided to finish out the underside details with the radio antenna. This was a challenge because I wanted this detail, like the others on the underside to pop-off in the event of a gear-up landing and not create any undo damage to the underside of the fuselage. How do you have two sticks poking out of the fuselage that have to pop-off and still have a little tension between them with the fake wire?</span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">I decided to glue a super magnet on the end of each brass tube mast. This was then fitted to a shaped hole in the fuse that has a piece of tin glued in the bottom for the magnet to hold onto. Works pretty good, holds the mast tight but should pop off with minimal damage to the underside of the fuse. The &ldquo;wire&rdquo; between the two mast is small black elastic cord that has slight tension on it. The great thing is the elastic cord keeps its own tension, is light, and can be easily CAed onto the ends of the masts.</span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 11.0px Helvetica"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px">The other detail that I already had was the &ldquo;Football&rdquo; antenna, this was shaped out of a block of balsa, hardened with CA. It has two positioning pins, one super magnet imbedded in the base, and this sticks into position on the bottom of the fuse. This piece had a real world test when I wheeled out the model on pavement and didn&rsquo;t air up the retracts and the front gear collapsed (My fault Mr. Robart!). The football antenna popped off without any damage whatsoever. The magnets also make field assembly a snap, no tools needed.
Even though this was on a Ziroli B-25, I hope you all find some of this tips helpful with your Top-Flite B-25s!</span></p></span></p>

MANFRED

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Nice work, love to see the whole bird</p>

Fly4Real

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Here is the whole bird from last summer sans new details...

Thomas B

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At long last, I have the first flightpictures of my version of the TF B-25J, done as Heavenly Body.

First flight was May 15...no second flight yet as I have either been out of town, rained out or at other events since then......

Flyingsite is beautiful Thunderbird Field atBenbrook Lake in Fort Worth,Tx.

Pictures are by my good freind and super model photographer Richard Ng....he got a super sequence of photos of the landing, as you can see below......

I am going to work on some more scale like propsthat match my electric motors and a few more details. I recently purchased the Wingspan modelsoperating upper turrent and bomb bay doors and will add that later in the year.

If anyone else wants to remark their model as Heavenly Body,Callie at Callie Graphics can fix you up with the tail and nose markings for 25 bucks, shipped...a real bargain!


http://www.callie-graphics.com/

MANFRED

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Hey fly4real, nice chee chees on Miss B Haven!

nemesis4u

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CONGRATS!!! THOMAS B,,,, you really greased her in there!! Looks like a great landing...nice to see a different nose art on this TOP=FLITE B-25!!

-CHEERS!

TOMAS
VQ WARBIRDS
TEXAS,USA
www.vqwarbirds.com
www.bomberfieldusa.com
www.getstencils.com

Fly4Real

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To prove I'm not a pervert, see attached photo. The Chee Chees are historical.
However, my two year old son points out to everyone it is a picture of "mommy".

MANFRED

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Mommy must be so proud. Anyways back in those days semi-clad female artwork was a sight for sore eyes. Now that we're all politically correct, things are different. I'm sure they still sneak some art on the new planes in Iraq from time to time.

Thomas B

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Thanks, Tomas. I like the B-25 so much I might have to buy a raffle ticket for your Bomber Field raffle model.... would be nice to have a spare!

If I can, I will try to bring it down to Bomber Field in Sept.

nemesis4u

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OKladies and gents...

Hereis the link to photos of the TF B-25 I assembled for the Raffle Prize...
http://bomberfieldusa.com/index01.htm
Looks quite nice with the black background..
She is ready to fly less receiver/battery. IFANYOFYOUALLare coming to SEPT's Bomberfield Event make sure to get
a raffle ticket... BTW ... CHECKOUTour clubs new RUNWAY!SMOOTHNEWLYPAVEDand EXTENDED!YOu gotta come down
in SEPTEMBER!ANYTHING80" wingspan or larger is permitted to fly at the Event in Sept. Also we will have the R/CTANKS battling it out
at the 6500 sqft BATTLEFIELD during the event! http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/m_69...tm.htm#7981481

-CHEERS!

TOMAS
www.vqwarbirds.com
www.bomberfieldusa.com
www.getstencils.com

Thomas B

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Well, got a couple of more B-25 flights in at the Waco, Tx Scale event last Saturday. It is really performing well...tons of power with the 5 cell 5000 lipos and get easy 8 minute flights with some reserve, with the least bit of throttle management.

This has to be one of the very best landing models I have ever had the pleasure to fly. Even with gusty winds 15-20mph, it was very, verywell behaved. Each landing was mains only and the nose gear was easily held off for a bit during the roll out. Used just a touch of flap; with the strong gusty headwind, none was really needed.

I am having a hard time understanding the nose gear breakage mentioned in the thread...with any kind of decent landing and runway surface, it should hardly ever get stressed.

Are most of the failures mentioned happening on rougher grass or poorly pavedrunways, or when a model runs over a harshrunway edge?

c550

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Thomas,</p>

</p>

The link pin(not sure if thats what Robart calls it) is aluminium and will shear with the force of taxiing fast on a slightly rough surface. I fabricated a pin from steel and I have had no problems.</p>

</p>

Regards,</p>

</p>

Dave</p>

nemesis4u

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Dave,

Anymore photos of your TF B-25 "MODIFIED" ??? I saw one photos of your Navy B-25..

Looks cool... Did you fly it at BOMBERFIELD in JUNE??

WE need to get together and do some flying..

-TOMAS
www.vqwarbirds.com
www.bomberfieldusa.com
www.getstencils.com

c550

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Thomas,

Yes. I flew it at the warbird fly in at Bomber. It was a great time! I will attach another picture. I am trying to get a picture just as the bombs come out of the bomb bay, but the timming has proven too hard so far.

Regards,

Dave

Speedracer2112

Hi guys,

Any flying tips? I set up my B25 as in the manual and flew her last week. It was way to sensitive to fly for me. I had to keep her from rolling over in the turns and it seemed hard to keep the wings level in turns. She tracked very nice in straight flight and was very exciting to watch in the air. I dropped the gear and flaps to land and she fell out of the sky in the first turn I took to come around.
I fly mainly fast flying aircraft like jets and sports planes so this was totally new to me. All of the gents at my club gasped as she fell. I had pulled to hard on the elevator at low speed and a tip stall quickly ensued. My lack of experience and distance to the plane led me to believe I had lost an engine and I pulled off the throttles. She landed in a jungle of giant oaks and palm scrub packed with spiders, snakes and wild boars.
Everyone at the field stated she was gone for good as it contained more than a several dozen multi hundred and a few multi thousand dollar planes that were never found. I didn't care and had to look. I was bitten by at least 14 huge spiders and hundreds of mosquito's. First I found a blue trainer with an OS 61 on it. I trekked it back out and went in again. Unbelievably I did find her in pretty good shape but I was lost in the dense growth and couldn't get the plane back out of the jungle. I knew I would never find it again and that it was a huge miracle that I had found it at all. Here's where it hurt. I had to break up the fuselage into large pieces and use it as bird crumbs to leave a trail so I could return to disassemble the plane to haul it out. Yes it did hurt. I had to keep laying and then pick up the trail over and over again because I couldn't get back out of the jungle. Finally I returned to the field and picked up a hex driver and a flat blade to disassemble the plane. When I returned I couldn't find the trail of the fuselage for about 45 min and then took an hour to get back to the plane. I disassembled her and drug the out of the jungle in five pieces.
I've ordered another from Tower and will start again soon. My good buddy Larry will be helping me fly her next time but I thought Id share the tale and ask for a little friendly help.

SR

RCGuy41

SR,

Sorry to hear about your loss, twins are very difficult to fly without prior experience. After reading your discription it seems as if 1. you were using too much rudder in your turns and not compensating with opposit ailerons, 2. when preparing for landing drop your throttle to half, as your speed decreases drop your flaps to the first position, then drop your gear, and just before turning to your down wind final approach drop your flaps to full. During your turn onto final, use elevator and ailerons in a slight desent and bring your throttles down to approximately 1/4, when your aircraft is centered to the runway level your wings and use your throttle and elevator to keep your nose up until your wheels touch the runway then bring your throttle to idle. Also read the following information from RC warbirds, http://www.rcwarbirds.com/Techniques/Technigues.htm#t2 makes for some interesting reading if you have never flown a military twin. Normand has approximately 80 flights on his B-25 (very experienced) and their are others who can provide great information to help you improve your skills flying your TF B-25. Twins are a hand full and the TF B-25 is not the easyest bird to fly. I primarrily fly military birds, so making my transision to the TF B-25 was easy for me, but also a challenge to learn the intrakit flight characteristics of the model. Real Fight 3.5 has an add on that I have been using to practice on and I have the program loaded on my laptop. Good luck with your next bird, ask plenty of questions.

Brad

Speedracer2112

Great advise. I also read the http://www.rcwarbirds.com/Techniques/Technigues.htm#t2 . Very helpful. The kit is no big deal and this time the build will be quite a bit closer to the 50 hours. : )

Thanks

SR

c550

My Feedback: (16)

I hope your not too discouraged. I noticed right away that with full flaps and engines near idle the B-25 will fall out of the sky. Its a huge amount of drag. If you are prepared for it and manage your power it works out. I would recommend less flap, and more power. The B-25 flys very well, but you need to keep the power on during the approach. I noticed that it turns better to the left than the right because of torque and P factor, but it is very easy to get used to it. Once you get it back in to the air and get used to it you will be very plaesed.

Regards,

Dave

Jon Wise

Well, I finally got to fly one of B25's today. It went well. We were able to get 3 flights before the wind came up strong. The one I flew is electric with Eflite power 60 motors on it. Need to work on finding the right prop for the setup. It seems a little under proped now. All was well and can't wait to fly it again. Later Jon

morpower

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This is a big post. I wanted to put some photo's up. I made the top side gun the on/off switch. This is someone else orig. thought, found earlier in post. Thanks for that idea. Here are some photo's of that.

morpower

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More Photo's. I used OS 81's and added extensions to get the mufflers outside of cowel without hacking big holes in it. I used 91 surpass mufflers as the stock mufflers that came with the OS 81a's, would not fit to my liking.