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Old 10-27-2003, 01:00 PM
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Gordon Mc
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Default RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter

ORIGINAL: tp777fo

I too, have been interested in this kit. What's your impression of the quality, glasswork, retracts, gear/brakes etc. Does it have intake ducting or bypass. Is the pipe double or single wall. What were the shipping costs? Anything that you could offer to help make up my mind would be helpful.

Thanks!
The glasswork is very good. A reasonable amount of surface detail is moulded into the fuselage, the two fuselage halves (seperable, for transport) fit together very nicely, and the hatch cover is also a nice fit. There does not appear to be any C/F, kevlar, or other such material used - just plain old fibreglass. The 'wetting' seems about right too - enough resin used to do the job, without excess anywhere. The pre-joined seams are well done too, and should need very little work to smooth out before painting.

The model uses main-wheel brakes now, unlike the nose-gear brake system that Mick used on models such as the Lightning. I have no idea yet how effective they will be, as I have not tried activating them. The nose gear leg is quite a nice looking casting, with dampening action on it. The main gear legs are plain (not meant to look scalke at all). The wheels look nice enough, but the tires seem a little on the soft side for a model of this scale. I would not be surprised to find out that the tires sag & wear more easily than the hard-rubber tires that I am used to.

The retracts - well, this is not a $1000 gear system like I am used to on most of my jets, so that needs to be borne in mind when asessing thsese units. The retract unit seem pretty light, and may not take enormous amounts of abuse like some of the more expensive gear will, but my impression so far is that they seem adequate for the job in hand, and are cheap enough that you can repair or replace parts if you do manage to screw them up. There is some slight interference on at least one of my units (discussed that with Mick today, and will be trying out a couple of ideas soon), and there are a couple of little things that I will be changing (will describe and do photos later), but so far I don't see any reasons to complain. Will reserve full judgement for whan I try operating them.

No bypass is used. Intake ducting is supplied "flat-pack" - you ned to cut the material and roll it to the correct shape.

I don't recall what the pipe was, but Tam may 'pipe' up here - he had a look at it last week. Failing that, I'll try to remember to take a look when I get home.

Can't help you on the shipping costs. I just called Mick up and said that I wanted the kit plus every option that he makes, plus some spare polyply and a spare canopy, and I got a bill for the whole deal. No idea how much of it was shipping, what the conversion rate was, etc.

Gordon