Guillows B-17...just wow!

rsv1cox wrote:

944_Jim wrote:Gents, I don't think we've seen this one before...Enjoy:

Totally impressed.  That fellow should be on the forum! Lived my dream.  After I finished the Scratched out P-38 I wanted to build a B-24 with four Babe Bees.  The slab sided B-24 being an easier build than the complicated B-17.  But I was pumped to fly a four engined job.  Really nice Guillows airframe.  Think I will go out and break a leg too.  Not sure if one or two were still working at the end.  

Nice, Jim. I made a comment on his video, encouraging him to join CEF.

Bob @rsv1cox , regarding paying for a build with a leg break, no thanks. I think @Kim may have upped the ante regarding donating a left kidney. I already had 14 staples removed from back surgery.   También, nuestro amigo desde Argentina, @MauricioB ya ha pagado el precio con la cirugía reciente. Also, our friend from Argentina, MauricioB has already paid the price with surgery recently.

Frank Baker made a single channel R/C rudder only with 4 Tee Dee .020's. If made at least 2 channel rudder and elevator, I don't see why 4 .049 reed valve engines couldn't be substituted.

https://outerzone.co.uk/plan_details.asp?ID=6706

Wow !
It is like,
Kieth Jarret, Paul J Guillow, and Leroy Cox got together.
Solving a tail heavy situation,
With two more .049s.
Very impressed,
Dave

Strange, looks like my YT video comment was deleted!

944_Jim:
It's excellent work, there really is a lot of dedication there.
Thanks for sharing this amateur's video, I'm sorry about his leg, but I take advantage of the time to distract himself and create, that's great.
Regarding kidneys, staples in the back, rear surgeries, etc etc, and now a broken leg...enough guys, let's try to take a break and nobody has to be intervened anymore!....in my case still It's been almost 5 months and there are still some discomforts...so enough of surgeries!!...haha
Once again I congratulate the builder of that beautiful B-17!!

MauricioB wrote:Regarding kidneys, staples in the back, rear surgeries, etc etc, and now a broken leg...enough guys, let's try to take a break and nobody has to be intervened anymore!....in my case still It's been almost 5 months and there are still some discomforts...so enough of surgeries!!...haha

Mauricio, regarding intervening, yo sólo estaba bromeando. Nosotros de CEF somos como una familia (Lupín 1982). Mauricio, I was just kidding, we at CEF are like a family.

GallopingGhostler wrote:

MauricioB wrote:944_JimRegarding kidneys, staples in the back, rear surgeries, etc etc, and now a broken leg...enough guys, let's try to take a break and nobody has to be intervened anymore!....in my case still It's been almost 5 months and there are still some discomforts...so enough of surgeries!!...haha

Mauricio, yo sólo estaba bromeando. Nosotros de CEF somos como una familia (Lupín 1982). Mauricio, I was just kidding, we at CEF are like a family.

yes of course, I laugh while I make this comment!!! hahaha
I'm kidding, but it's hard for me to explain humor in the right way when writing and translating.
How can I explain it....??... I'm also joking in my comment!! ha ha

Let's see if it's understood this way:
Guys: if surgery was a hobby, then let's change hobbies!! ha ha

MauricioB wrote:Let's see if it's understood this way: Guys: if surgery was a hobby, then let's change hobbies!! ha ha

Mauricio, relájate por favor, no importa. Ya tengo suficientes aviones rotos y motores rotos que necesitan ser reparados. Creo que tú también tienes lo mismo.
Mauricio, relax please, it doesn't matter. I already have enough broken airplanes and broken engines that need repairing. I believe you have the same, too.

So.. what "I'd do" (differently) with a four-engined  Babe Bee-powered aircraft...  would bee to fit all four engines with old 5cc tank-bowls that have holes drilled for external fuel-lines.. and plumb them to either a "central tank".. or to two separate "port and starboard" tanks. It would depend on how the model was being flown.

The "Bee" (Cox .049 integrally-tanked reed-valve engines) engines have absolutely no problems drawing fuel through that backplate design. It works like a pump as observed when cranking the engine via an elec. starter.

If I were attempting to start/run X4 of them.... I'd definitely want more than 5cc's worth of fuel/run-time.

I've owned this kit for more than 40 years. The old one like I own is pretty horrid, the wood is heavy and the parts are die smashed. The plastic parts were far better in detail and strength to the garbage they offer today. However, the now old plastic is so fragile that just picking it up out of the box causes it to break and shatter on it's own weight. One of the reasons why I wanted this kit is the wing mounted engines, I didn't want to sheet the fuse as in other single engine models. The firewall mount design isn't really a good one but it works on the B-17.

          I have to give the gent credit, his model is beautifully done especially when one is in pain. I spent two years in a cast from my wrist to my shoulder. It's unpleasant and utterly aggravating. It drags you down and you don't immediately recognize things that you can't do until it's time to do them.

I commend him on his successful flight. That being said though, I feel that there was sheeting missing in and around the nacelles. Not only would've this made covering easier to do and repair if needed, it would've strengthened the nacelles. It was clear in the video that the engines were vibrating as the cowls came loose. Not that there's a great attachment method for the plastic crap.

          I do agree that tanks would be a nice feature but in general flights on these are simple roundy rounds which I feel are adequately interesting. Typically, the landing gear provisions that Guillow provides are generally just good enough to allow for a static model let alone a control line plane which would certainly require attention.

Love the build wish he had got the engine runs better . the sink was out pretty bad And I had my volume turned up LOL

I've never been able to complete one of these models without accidentally breaking it a few times....before it's built.
For a plane like that I would have tempted to use spruce stringers
I was worried about the model until after the lone engine quit.
Such a monumental effort...I hope he has a nice place to display it.

getback wrote:Love the build wish he had got the engine runs better . the sink was out pretty bad And I had my volume turned up LOL

Eric, although a very fine work, I gather that his B-17 may have been a little on the heavy side, which seems typical for Guillow type builds compounded by the additional engines. With only a wingspan of 45.75 inches (1162 mm), using the G model data from

http://galbreath.net/493rd-bomb-group/b17-flying-fortress/b-17-specifications/

Original had a Wingspan of 103 ft. 9.4 in., Wing Area of 1,420 sq. ft. Assuming the Guillow kept the same proportions, by extrapolation, (older I get the harder it is to do ) I came up with an equivalent wing area of 267 square inches.

That is about half way between the wing areas of my 36 inch wingspan Q-Tee (250 sq. in.) and my 39 inch wingspan Schoolmaster (285 sq. in.). Both those were designed for a single half-A engine, which they had with light weight R/C gear of the time, decent glides.

Here, we are quadrupling engines at a significant increase in weight, by the time you add fuel, without increasing wing area. So I gather, he had a very heavy wing load. In comparison, Frank Baker's 1966 B-24 had a 60 inch (1524 mm) wingspan and used 4 lighter Cox .020 Tee Dees, which had a decent dead stick glide.

TD ABUSER wrote:I've never been able to complete one of these models without accidentally breaking it a few times....before it's built. For a plane like that I would have tempted to use spruce stringers. I was worried about the model until after the lone engine quit. Such a monumental effort...I hope he has a nice place to display it.

Yeah, been there and done that with my rubber powered builds. I've heard others doing this and see how it could be done. Nice thing about hard wood is one can use slightly smaller cross sections to keep weight withing limits and still increase strength. May be make every other stringer as hardwood instead of balsa.

Perhaps if he went with two engines instead of 4, may have resulted in decent flight yet perhaps a better dead stick glide?

Perhaps if he went with two engines instead of 4, may have resulted in decent flight yet perhaps a better dead stick glide?

Good thought George, a couple of inboard Black Widows with the larger tanks and two dummys on the outside minus props...who can tell the difference in the air results in less weight and drag.

Bob, I would have taken it an additional step, use 2 Cox .020 Tee Dee's instead. (Carl Goldberg's 37 inch span Skylark with 2 engines and about same wing area used the same approach.) With plastic tanks and lighter, would have ample power for such wing area.

Also, I would have gone for a lighter finish in say, Polyspan, only use paint for trim. Being lighter yet resembling clear doped tissue, (say beige or green Polyspan on the top and Polyspan gray or sky blue for the underside), let it shine as a work of art with framework showing through.

Plus like others have suggested, sheet in plank engine nacelles to give better resistance from engine vibration. May be plank portions of the underside with a strip of plastic from a plastic bleach bottle as a skid, leave off the landing gear.

(The Guillow landing gears weren't that great on the rubber powereds, better left off to reduce weight and prevent tearing up the structure on landing.)

Being lighter, then it would have been a total blast to fly, plus do some simple 2 channel aerobatics with it.

Yes, they look great in natural too. This one in Air Classics caught my eye.

This gentleman did an outstanding job on the B-17 and is a superb modeler…..A lot of directions this project could have taken but I really like it as is….. Four engines,Challenging and realistic….. CL, So graceful around its arc….The double tissue covering was kind of the long way around but the result is amazing….The whole thing has that just right vibe…..Love how he nursed it til all shut down…..Kudos to the builder and pilot….

Not criticizing his work, he did an amazing job of building, finishing as well as piloting. We all have our preferences, plus we all approach solutions differently.

Regarding Bob's idea of a scale like finish, grey Polyspan could also approximate that also.

This is what makes us uniquely different and adds a spark to life. If we all did things the same way, we'd just be another ARF flying world with the exact same radios, now just electric motors with the same props, batteries, and a whole bunch of safety features (like stability control) just so we could say we flew it.

Then we'd be CEFINO. (CEF In Name Only).

None perceived Friend ….Just acknowledging a job well done…. Agree with you, There would be many ways to model it that would be totally cool!!!

Love the B-24 you posted and have went over it a few times…. Then I tell myself, Look away…. Look away!!!!

Robert

The back story on that B-17. The matte black anti-glare in front of the cockpit and on the insides of the engines narcilles is always neat to reproduce on a model and they add a lot to the models character. I'm not sure if the black on the leading edges of the wing and tail section are anti icing boots or not. Maybe they post-date the B-17.

rsv1cox wrote:I'm not sure if the black on the leading edges of the wing and tail section are anti icing boots or not.  Maybe they post-date the B-17.

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deicing_boot, deicing boots were developed in the late 1920's.

History wrote:Deicing boots were invented by the B.F. Goodrich Corporation in about 1929–1930 in Akron, Ohio. The work was begun by retired Ph.D chemist, William C. Geer. In its quest to develop deicing boots, the company built a large indoor facility in Akron to replicate bad weather and icing on aircraft wings.

Additional pay dirt, the original pilot's manual (free download):

https://jasonblair.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Pilots-Manual-for-Boeing-B-17-Flying-Fortress.pdf

PDF page 8 (manual Page 9) show diagram.


PDF page 20 (manual Page 19):

c. CONTROLS AT PILOT'S LEFT. wrote:(3) DE-ICER CONTROL. - The de-icer valve on the floor panel controls the operation of the surface de-icer shoes. In the "ON" position it starts the deicer distributor and connects the exhaust pressure from both vacuum pumps, and the suction from one vacuum pump to the distributor valve. In the "OFF" position the distributor motor is turned off and the pressure from the vacuum pumps is bypassed overboard. Suction remains connected to the distributor valve in order to keep the de-icer shoes deflated.

944_Jim wrote:Gents,

I don't think we've seen this one before...Enjoy:
https://youtu.be/Yq1Gb9XTupA

Jim, Thanks again for providing the weblink.

A couple of things I'd like to further point out to all who've watched the vid and/or have replied here; The builder of the model (a U-Control flyer) stated that the Guillow's instructions said to use "only two" Cox Babe Bee engines.. but he found that the model balanced perfectly with four engines.

Yes; tough to get all 4 engines sync'd... (I'm surprised that a tach wasn't obtained/used on either day.. ) but nonetheless.....

Take note that this model (as built) will still fly (maintain altitude) with X3 engines-out.......... just like the full-scale aircrafts had reportedly done; often after sustaining punishing damage during the bombing missions of WWII. A testament mainly to the builder.. (for his mods applied to the kit...) but also to the Guillow's designer(s) of the kit.

And all this time I thought de-icers were heaters.