Most of my formative years as a kid were spent in the 1990’s, when the movie Memphis Belle was released. Being an airplane nerd, it instantly became my favorite film and still is to this day. It’s not really a critically acclaimed movie, but if you have any interest at all in aviation or World War 2 history, you must see it. It’s just a really great story about one of the first B17 crews to complete 25 missions, a full tour of duty, which allowed the crew to go home.

I’m 37 now. Since I started in the RC airplane hobby at the age of 12 I’ve dreamed of having a model of the B17 Flying Fortress. So, with my SOLIDWORKS tools and 3D printers sitting idle in anticipation, I decided to build one.

From the start of this project, I was committed to making the B17 look as scale as possible. Little did I know that decision would add around 100 hours of CAD work to the project just designing the scale details like the tire hubs, dummy radial engines, and a ton of simulated panel lines.

I couldn’t be happier with the resulting look of my B17. But good looks were only half of the goal with this project. If it didn’t fly, and fly well, I was afraid I’d walk away from this project unfulfilled. Check out the video to see the results.

Here are the specs of the final design:

Scale: 1/15th
Flying Weight: 5500g (194 ounces)
Wing Span: 83” (2.1M)
Wing area: 919.13 sq. in.
Wing loading: 30.39 oz/sq. ft.
Wing Cube Loading: 12

Motors: 4x Flightline 3530860kV
ESCs: 4x 30Amp
Batteries: 2x 4S 5000mah
Servos: 7x Hitec HS85MG

The B17G Flying Fortress files are available for free here: https://www.3daeroventures.com/designs

All of 3DAeroventure’s 3D printable aircraft designs are now free! We are committed to keeping future designs free as well. If you are happy with the design, build, and flight performance of our models, please consider donating anything you see fit to help grow the website with exciting new designs and the YouTube channel with fresh content. Thank you so much for your support!

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Helpful Links:

Thank you to SOLIDWORKS and HitecRCD USA for sponsoring this video!

SOLIDWORKS worldclass CAD tools are now available to makers and hobbyists for personal use for only $99 USD per year. They are also offering my viewers a limited time 20% discount. Follow this link to get your discount and access the best CAD tools on the planet.

Check out 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers:

https://discover.solidworks.com/maker...

Click this link to receive 20% off 3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS for Makers:

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Hobbyists throughout the world continue to recognize Hitec as their preferred servo source. Click this link to learn more about all of there product offerings:

https://www.hitecrcd.com/

And here is a link to the Hitec HS85MG servos I used in my B17G Flying Fortress:

https://hitecrcd.com/products/servos/...

Learn more about 3DAeroventures at www.3daeroventures.com

Check out my buddy James Ray's drone chase footage on his YouTube Channel:
   / @sgtjamesray  

Music Attribution:
"Rhythm of War" by ZakharValaha www.pixabay.com
"The Story Begins" by Hampus Naeselius www.epidemicsound.com
"In Abundance" by Edgar Hopp www.epidemicsound.com