eRC B-25J Mitchell Bomber Model Airplane

This is a amazing kit. Receiver ready basically. All I have to do as glue the wings on and program

my radio. Well... there is more to do than just that of course.

I finally got it out of "lay-a-away" from my local hobby ship on December 31, 2010. While only $300 bucks, paying a little bit at a time and then when a emerengy comes up, having to put off a payment for a month or two. Well, buying the model took longer than I thought it would back when I first started paying money down on it back in May of 2010.

But anyho... Today was a fine day and since I now have a "workshop" over at my friend's place, I finally had time to look this model over and start to put it together.

I other previous experience with eRC came in the form of the Ready to Fly (RTF) Spitfire. But the B-25J that I am now working on is from a different company - but Hobby Lobby markets this product under its' eRC brand. Made out of EPO foam, its fuselage length is 41 inches. Wingspan is 53.25 inches giving a wing area of 356 square inches. Five channels are needed (Alieron, Elevator, Rudder, Retracts, Throttle). It even has working navigation lights.

Now, my model comes with the 20 Amp speed control. The newer kits come with the 30 Amp ESC. The bomber is done up as the "Apache Princess." The real B-25 did not have counter-rotating 3-blade props - but this kit is set up for that to make it more stabe for brand new multi-engine flyers. Power is provided by the 3-cell 2200 mAh LiPo battery. The kit even comes with its own charger.

To guide this model through the air, I now have a JR 10sxII transmitter (a older version of the 10X transmitter to be sure). Its going to be on 72Mhz for right now. Someday I hope I can afford the 2.4GHz module that can connect to this readio.

On the day that I am writing this post, I managed to shoe-horm all the wiring from each wing into the fuselage and glue the wings in place. My biggest complaint thus far on this model is HOW the wings mate to the fuselage.

It would have been nice if this model had also been designed to include a working bomb bay. Because then it would have been easier to get both wire sets from each wing and to organize them better than the small foam hatch on the bottom of the fuse ahead of the bomb bay.

In the process of this build, I am planning on getting a camera for FPV video taking some time in the future. So my thinking is to make the glass nose removable and putting the camera in there when ready.

And if this model can survive my first test flights of it, then I will have something to fly with at our local club's 2011 Warbird event later this year.

UPDATE (March 23, 2011): Its all put together now. Just need a few odds and ends like making the front bombardier nose removable to allow me to stick a small FPV camera up front if I ever get one of those key chain video cameras. Anyway, here is a picture of it up on its landing gear sitting on th dirt runway of the Lubbock Oddball RC Society (LORCS).

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Ref. Hobby Lobby website (http://www.hobby-lobby.com/b25_apache_princess.htm). pictures taken from same source.