Top Gun Video Interview — Mike Grady — B-17 Flying Fortress

Top Gun Video Interview — Mike Grady — B-17 Flying Fortress

At this year’s scale invitational, Mike’s competition aircraft for Team Scale was this amazing WW2 4-engine, B-17 Flying Fortress heavy bomber. The B-17 was 1/9-scale and built from a Wingspan models kit and has a span is 138 inches with a fuselage length of 99 inches. Weight is 65 pounds. The model is electric powered and is equipped with four Hacker A60 electric motors and ESCs. Each motor is individually controlled so that the outboard motors provide differential thrust to offset the yaw inherent in a model with a large vertical stabilizer and tail wheel. Four Thunder Power 4S 7700mAh Lipo batteries are used wired in two 8S circuits. Each circuit draws about 5500 watts at full throttle using Master Air Screw 16X10 3-bladed propellers cut down to scale size.

Road to Top Gun -- Dennis "Mike" Grady -- B-17 Flying Fortress - RC Scale Airplane Competition

The model also has BVM E Brakes for each main gear wheel to provide better steering and some  additional yaw control at taxi speeds. Just like the real B-17 you can lock up one brake and rev up the opposing outboard motor to make a scale turn. I use an 18 channel Spektrum Transmitter, eleven JR servos and JR gyro’s. The model is finished using catalyzed urethane primer and aluminum color coat. Model Master enamel is used for the top colors and is wet sanded and “tape pulled” to provide a weathered appearance. About 250,000 Pro Mark dry transfer rivets and fasteners are used for added eye candy under the top coat paint.

Road to Top Gun -- Dennis "Mike" Grady -- B-17 Flying Fortress - RC Scale Airplane Competition

Piloted by David Payne, Mike’s Nine-O-Nine earned the Best Multi-Engine Performance award.

 

Updated: July 23, 2015 — 9:40 AM

5 Comments

  1. Love the B-17, and that is a beautiful plane! Great job!

  2. Beautiful job. Very nice

  3. Very nice indeed. Although I always think that a B17 should be done in a much larger scale to really look realistic.

  4. Were can I find/get the Wingspan models kit ???????

  5. This is an amazing aircraft!!! Congratulations Mike.

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