Nitroplanes FlyModel B-17 Flying Fortress

One of the most interesting models I have ever assembled.  A four engined bomber without a lot of hassle and expense...
First, the good parts...it goes togther pretty quickly, and it flies BEAUTIFULLY.  It also looks GREAT in the air.
Second, the bad parts...there are some minor quality control issues, and it's not perfectly scale.

It's mostly nicely-done wood, with a few plastic and fiberglass parts.  The decals were simply awful, and I threw them away.  The QC issues were not enough paint on the upper canopy deck, and complete and total mispainting of the ball turret.  Also, the nose is painted solid, it would really look better with some windows.  The retracts are not in the scale position, but that's something of a plus, as they are very simple and strong to set up.  I used Nitroplanes retracts, and had no problems.
The rest of the equipment...Raiden 1300kv speed 400 motors, Nitroplanes 8x4 props, Raiden 25a escs, towerpro 4010 servos, one JR retract servo, Spektrum AR7000 receiver, 2 2220 3s packs, one driving the inner motors, the other for the outer.
The motor and esc package is the one offered  by nitroplanes for $160, it's cheap, and works like a charm.
The plane flies just beautifully...I will post more detail if anybody is interested...

If you ever wanted to do a B-17, here is your chance.  Anything else is hideously complicated, or not very scale, or incredibly expensive.  This was my first four engined model, and everything went very well, and people are VERY impressed with it in the air.  And you can't beat the price.  Go for it, it's not too challenging, it's easy enough to get together, and very easy to fly, and the performance is just great.

Nitroplanes Guanli PBY Catalina Seaplane

It's a wonderful plane. It took about an hour for me to get it together. There is nothing particularly noteworthy about putting it together, except things will go much faster with five minute epoxy instead of the provided contact cement. Every single item is included, even a screwdriver and glue. The only thing you need to provide is 8 AA batteries for the transmitter.
So...how does it fly? Just great. With the provided brushed geared motors and NIMH battery, it has adequate power to fly around nicely, and will loop from a shallow dive. It is extremely stable, and extremely easy to fly. It could be a first or second plane. Hand launching is very easy. It will also get off water or snow. If you plan on flying off water, you will probably want to add a water rudder to help steer it around after landing. If you are flying off anything but soft grass or water, you will probably want to add some clear packing tape to the bottom of the fuselage and wing floats to prevent them from getting scratched up. Do not attempt to fly it without the provided wing struts, they are needed, and stay away from any wild aerobatics that might give the wing negative G forces, it's not really stressed for that. The plane is plenty strong for normal flying, but it's not an aerobat, nor was the real PBY Catalina. It looks best doing a low pass or touch and goes off the water. It's extremely light, and will fly very very slowly, it's hard for beginning pilots to get into trouble with it, and the flight charachteristics are certainly suitable for park flying.

Flight times are around 8 minutes with the provided pack, and the wall charger takes about an hour to refill the pack. The 27 MHZ radio works fine, it occasionally glitches here and there, but recovers right away. Keep in mind that range is not unlimited, keep the plane withing 500 feet of you or so, and that you are subject to interference from many other toys and other devices out there. It would be very easy to install a different receiver, but, again, the provided one is perfectly adequate. Do make sure your receiver antenna is stretched out all the way to the tail, that you have fresh batteries in the transmitter, and that you range check your system before you fly it.

As far as upgrades go, if you change the installed connector, you can put in an inexpensive 12c 3 cell 2200mah lipo battery. It will fit flat on the tray right above where the NIMH pack went, and will stay where it is by just a friction fit between the tray and the fuselage and the pushrods. The extra power of the 11v lipo makes for a dramatic transformation...power is now much more than is needed, she will climb out at a 45 degree angle, and flight times are 12-15 minutes. Full throttle is rarely needed. Motor life may suffer in the long run, but mine has been fine so far, and it's a lot more fun to fly with the lipo pack. I feel no need at all to upgrade the motors to brushless, the provided geared systems are more than adequate to fly the plane very well.

It's a heck of a deal for $99, you really can't go too far wrong. I'm very pleased.