So, pretty much finished now, ball turret made and added, top turret guns added. Just needs a coat of varnish to seal it all.

Some fun things include the fact that the Bendix chin turret is made from the metal circular bit you find at the top of a Clipper cigarette lighter with the rear fairing part of it having been made from modeling putty in order to add some weight to the nose to improve the trim, the ball turret is made from cutting off the bottom part of two Screwball ice cream containers where the bubble gum ball sits, then gluing the two hemispheres together to make a sphere which is very thin and lightweight. The unit markings, serial numbers, window details etc, with the exception of the stars and bars, were just freehand painted on there since they only need to look okay from a distance.

Not turned out too bad considering it started out looking like this:

Edited May 10, 20206 yr by Chock

15 hours ago, Chock said:

Some fun things include the fact that the Bendix chin turret is made from the metal circular bit you find at the top of a Clipper cigarette lighter....

I KNEW I'd seen that part somewhere before! Good eye for the recycle! She's looking far better than the stock model. The ball turret may well be the first casualty of subsequent flights - you'll find the only stone on the long grass to land on. 

35 minutes ago, HighBypass said:

I KNEW I'd seen that part somewhere before! Good eye for the recycle! She's looking far better than the stock model. The ball turret may well be the first casualty of subsequent flights - you'll find the only stone on the long grass to land on. 

Well, the one thing you can say for sure with radio-controlled aeroplanes, is that usually it's not a case of if you crash it, but when, which is one of the reasons why I kind of like messing about with cheap ones as it's a bit less annoying when they cartwheel across a field shedding bits left right and centre. 🤣

So I took it out for a test flight whilst looking after Snorky this afternoon and things got interesting. The wind speed was frankly a bit too high to be testing it, but I decided to give it a go anyway. So, it still appears a bit tail heavy but still has enough power to fly with the addition of a bit of weight from all the paint and bits and bobs I added, so I think I'm going to add some more weight to the nose.

When I flew it today, it really had to fight to make progress against the wind, it was in fact possible to basically have it hover in position when on lower throttle settings facing into the wind. However the wind was fairly changeable in direction which made things pretty tricky and at one point it was up very high and was in danger of drifting out of range to a point where if it came down it might have been irretrievable since it was heading in the direction of the nearby fuel depot which is adjacent to the farm which Snory's stable is on. so i had no choice but to completely chop the throttle and try to steer it back toward me, which did prevent it drifting any further, but also made it lose flying speed and it came down on the roof of the stables lol.  So after climbing on the roof of the stables (easier said than done), and carefully getting to it, I was able to retrieve it when I found that it had survived its impromptu roof landing with only very minor damage in the shape of one of the nose turret guns breaking off and the other one bending upwards. since these are literally cocktail sticks painted black, it won't take much to sort that out.

Since when I went out I wasn't certain I was going to fly it, I didn't plan to photograph it in flight, however even though I was having to control it at the time, I did manage to get out my phone and snap a picture of it up high. Since this wasn't planned I've had to blow it up a bit and it doesn't really do it justice because it does look good in the air, so when I've added some weight and the wind is calmer, I will film it flying, but in the meantime, just to prove it did fly okay, here is the pic, and another pic of the very minor damage to the guns on the front (note the bit of grass wrapped around the number 3 engine prop, from a more gentler landing on the grass).

So Mark was right about a turret taking some damage, although it was the chin turret guns, the ball turret, and everything else, is no worse for the ordeal, so that's quite realistic really because the real thing was a tough S.O.B. as well. 🤣

Edited May 11, 20206 yr by Chock

Eventful "weaponised" test flight! That top photo was actually snapped by Hans Weinerschnitzel as he was walking down the Reeperbahn in Hamburg "Gott in Himmel!! Das ist der Geist Amerikaner B-17!" 

Apologies to any Germans here. As a kid I used to read this comic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warlord_(DC_Thomson)

and this: (it's still going today!)

https://www.commandocomics.com/