“…I’ll be gone-gone-gone.”; just like most of this B-25J’s brothers have gone to the great hangar in the sky.

Despite a production run of nearly 10,000, which would be impressive for many of the marques of car that we feature here, there are fewer than 50 B-25 Mitchells left flying today. The B-25 first flew in 1940 and finally retired from military service in 1979. Being an unglamorous, workhorse, medium bomber, the B-25 didn’t get the fame of the fighters or the heavies such as the B-17 or B-24. However, it was famous for being flown off an aircraft carrier in Lt Col Jimmy Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo. Modern audiences will know it as the aircraft of Capt Yossarian in Joseph Heller’s classic “Catch-22”.

The version featured here was built by Florida Shooter on MOCpages. He has built it in the markings of the 499th Bomber Squadron – “Bats Outta Hell” and we like how the squadron’s distinctive nose art has been brick-built, rather than applied with stickers. The particular mark is the B-25J2, with the “strafer nose”. Click this link to view the detailed photos and see if you can spot all 18 of the aircraft’s Browning M2 machine guns.