It appears we in Michigan have been bitten by a strange bug....it makes you want to hibernate indoors, cut balsa into odd shapes, glue your fingers together a few times, and end up with a twin 400 RC model in the spring!

2 buddies and I are all building Invaders from my plans.
I'll be posting pics from the builds, mostly mine as the others aren't digital guys yet .
This is a standard Rittinger , easy to build,SOS design. "Wingo" built one last year as proto, and it went well.

So far in two evenings I have the basic fuselage framed up. I need to round out the corners of the fuselage, and decide if I'd like to do the glass nose or the later .50 Cal nose. Could add tiptanks, or do an On-Mark Conversion bird as well. Then there's the Red Deer Alberta firebombers.....

Power will be two 7.2 volt 400's with a 3 cell Lipo. Aileron / elevator control, no gear , no rudder. Cheap, fun, and EASY...but mostly cheap
I'll get you guys a pic tonight.

Mark Rittinger

Cool, another twin!!!!!!!!!!

Yes sir, Another twin!
Having played around with the 42" Warbird Series for a bit, I thought it might be nice to do one or two more of these fun little ships.
I just made a rough prototype of an SR71 with two 400's (puller's), and it actually flew quite well with a bit of down and right trim...
I still have to build the Sinistere sport 400 twin bird as well, those plans are finished.
Mark

cool! do the gun nose please....got to get some NVAs

This is what I have so far. I think it looks like an Invader without being hard to assemble. We aren't going Precision Scale here, just as long as it is recognizable.
Very light and quite strong so far. Minimal parts.
Will try to get the empennage cut out tomorrow night, then we can see what it looks like.

Cool!

"One a day in Tampa Bay!"

Tom

Tom, that was the B26 Marauder. That one flew like a fighter, so the flight crews would typically fly it like a bomber and in it would go!

Originally Posted by catrancher

Cool!

"One a day in Tampa Bay!"

Tom

Tom, I believe that quote applied to the Martin B-26 "Marauder".
The Douglas A-26, (later B-26, after all the Martins had been scrapped, by orders of HST), being a bit later design, enjoyed a better reputation.

A Martin B-26 flew over my junior high school, in southern Michigan, trailing black smoke. That evening my dad drove me out to the crash-site. Not a pleasant experience, but he wanted me to understand the real world.

Later, in 1944, we moved to California, (dad was a Civil-Servant, worked in USAAF fuel storage & dispensing). That's the first time I saw the awesome gun-noses on the Douglas A-26s, parked just the other side of the chain-link fence, on my way to school.

Mark, that's cool. Will you be offering plans? I was going to enlarge and convert the Comet version but that's a lot of trouble.
Some info about one a day in Tampa Bay:
http://rwebs.net/dispatch/output.asp?ArticleID=14

Glenn

Glenn, I have plans available now. The proto has flown well, so I can make them available.
They are $23.00 PP US.

Will try to get the tail complete by end of tonight....wing soon to follow I suppose.

Mark

Got the empennage finished tonight, pinned on. Will get glued on after covering.

Nice!!!

Thanks, should get going on a wing panel tonight....

Originally Posted by glewis

Mark, that's cool. Will you be offering plans? I was going to enlarge and convert the Comet version but that's a lot of trouble.
Some info about one a day in Tampa Bay:
http://rwebs.net/dispatch/output.asp?ArticleID=14

Glenn

Glenn, thanks for that link! The group that the '26 belonged to that I saw the grisly crash-site of, went on to become known as the "Bridge Busters", in Europe. My mother worked in the base dry-cleaning shop, and so knew most of the crash victims. Pilot error was not a factor in that case. Early Curtiss-Electric propellers had a proclivity to "run-away", as happened in this case. That crew, and many more after them, never had a chance. (It was still killing good men during my service time, on B-29s).
Not long after the time I cited in Battle Creek, then-Senator Harry Truman tried to have the Martin B-26 permanently grounded and scrapped, but he didn't get his way until the war was over, and he was President.
Back on topic, Mark's fine model, someplace there is a link to the various interchangeable nose-packs, for the Douglas '26, (8 separate arrangements, as I recall)! Hope one of us runs across that, & posts it.

Here are a few of the nose configurations.

Glenn