B-25 COD

[Eddie M.]

Can't go wrong with haze gray and underway.

[upnorth]

I like the idea of keeping the tricycle landing gear and adding an auxilliary, Tracker style tailwheel.

Would you perhaps consider putting some dihedral into the horizontal tail surface, like in the case of the Hawkeye?

It occured to me that if the Mitchell had a particularly hard landing, you might want to take some sort of measure back there to ensure that the lower ends of the vertical tail plates stay out of contact with the carrier deck.

Perhaps, if you wanted to be really radical about it, you could modify the tail unit to a more conventional single vertical tail, sort of in the way that the Liberator was modified to the Privateer. That would certainly take away any fears of the vertical stabilisers contacting the deck on hard landings and would give your Mitchell a decidedly different look. It would still look Mitchell enough, but would certainly cause some people to do a double take while looking at it.

As for the nose weight, I hardly think it's a worry. No reason I can think of that a COD aircraft should have a glased nose.

I also like the idea Eddie has for the classic Grumman wingfold. It would look perfect on the Mitchell and you could write some sort of backstory about that part of the project being farmed out to Grumman to justify incorporating it into the design. I don't think North American had much, if anything, to do with naval aviation at the time, so it would stand to reason that they would need the outside help of someone like Grumman or Douglas who had more experience in that aspect of aircraft design to carry the whole thing off properly.

[Dork the kit slayer]

Perhaps a turbo COD......................I think there called Turbots..............could be wrong LOL

[The Rat]

As for the nose weight, I hardly think it's a worry. No reason I can think of that a COD aircraft should have a glased nose.

Oh no, glass nose is out from minute one, but it may have a hinged nose for loading material from the front. The Airfix model has the solid nose option so that makes it easier.

[The Rat]

Perhaps a turbo COD......................I think there called Turbots..............could be wrong LOL

GROAN!

[Dork the kit slayer]

Perhaps a turbo COD......................I think there called Turbots..............could be wrong LOL

GROAN!

Jeez your a hard audience................................what do you want for free

[B777LR]

As for the nose weight, I hardly think it's a worry. No reason I can think of that a COD aircraft should have a glased nose.

Oh no, glass nose is out from minute one, but it may have a hinged nose for loading material from the front. The Airfix model has the solid nose option so that makes it easier.

The nose is a bit short, and it will probably be tail-heavy when the first container is loaded, so how about stretching the nose a wee bit in front of the cockpit?

[The Rat]

The nose is a bit short, and it will probably be tail-heavy when the first container is loaded, so how about stretching the nose a wee bit in front of the cockpit?

Yep, that was on the 'look at' list.

[Weaver]

It occured to me that if the Mitchell had a particularly hard landing, you might want to take some sort of measure back there to ensure that the lower ends of the vertical tail plates stay out of contact with the carrier deck.

Perhaps, if you wanted to be really radical about it, you could modify the tail unit to a more conventional single vertical tail, sort of in the way that the Liberator was modified to the Privateer. That would certainly take away any fears of the vertical stabilisers contacting the deck on hard landings and would give your Mitchell a decidedly different look. It would still look Mitchell enough, but would certainly cause some people to do a double take while looking at it.

Good suggestions, although I'm not sure that the fins extend far enough below the fuselage line for that to be a problem, particularly if the aircraft's fitted with a tail wheel. If it was, then another possible scheme would be to shorten the lower parts of the tail fins and then add a small central fin to compensate (assuming that the tail turret is to be deleted).

[The Rat]

Good suggestions, although I'm not sure that the fins extend far enough below the fuselage line for that to be a problem, particularly if the aircraft's fitted with a tail wheel. If it was, then another possible scheme would be to shorten the lower parts of the tail fins and then add a small central fin to compensate (assuming that the tail turret is to be deleted).

The three-views I've seen show that the lower edge of the vertical stabilisers are actually above the bottom of the fuselage, so that's no problem at all.

[Eddie M.]

I know this isn't on your to do list with this model, but you got me thinking of a B-25 seaplane like the Catalina.

[upnorth]

I don't think you'd have a problem with nose length if you used the glased nose parts as they made fora somewaht longer nose than the solid nosed variants.

I saw a fire bomber Mitchell once that simply had the nose glasing painted over. So, if you could use the glased nose for the basis of an extended solid nose you'd pretty much have that problem nicked.

As for the issue of possible tail strikes on the carrier. I did take a second look the boxart image you posted and it looks like the Mitchell had a tail bumper anyway, so we may have been debating that matter for nought. Though I still would suggest the idea of raising the bottoms of the vertical stabilisers a tad to minimise tail strike damage to the ship's deck. The fuselage strike would leave enough of a mark, you don't need two extra gouges to go with it.

It did occur to me, rather than add dihedral to the horizontal tail, you could simply elevate the whole assembly a milimetre or so by sticking a sheet styrene shim in at the point where it all attaches to the fuselage. It would probably be the easier solution as you could work that in during the process of deleteing the tail turret.

[PR19_Kit]

At least one of the non-glazed noses for the B-25 was about the same length as the 'bomber nose' or maybe even longer. That's the 8 or 12 gun nose, with twin rows of 0.5s placed vertically either side of the centre line. That nose is one of the mouldings supplied in the Airfix kit, and it has LOTS of room for nose weight.

It's the shorter noses, the ones with the 75 mm gun, that cause the tail sitting issues. When I built a B-25H I put weight in the engine nacalles to keep it upright, and even then it didn't work, so I added the accom. ladder at the rear of the bomb bay and had a crewman about to climb up....

[B777LR]

Just a rough profile, how do you like it?

[jorel62]

Really liked the idea. So I thought I'd jump in. Hope you don't mind.