The ORION is a new sports jet design, a 2M span full composite jet airframe with a turbine range of P70-P140.
The construction is vacuum formed glassfibre, with standard layup in the fuselage and with the addition of airex/glass sandwich in wings, stabs and fin/rudder (which are detachable)
Wings are two piece and a nice feature is the fuselage also breaks into two, so those with small vehicles will still be able to transport this jet with ease.
Internally there is a good spread of plywood formers (all hand made by the kit manufacturer) most of which are pre-fitted. All the rear section formers are fitted, including the turbine rails, I adjusted these with plates to cater for the mounting straps for my turbine choice - a B100F from BF Turbines.
Ducting is pre-fitted and between the ducting sits a supplied 2.5L composite fuel tank. As I am using a 120N turbine I am experimenting with making a new slightly larger tank, around 3.1L in capacity which with a small former modification will sit in exactly the same location but provide the extra fuel that I may need.
The nose section requires the nose gear door to be cut out, and once done a set of supplied formers are fitted via the opening to create the nose gear mounting point.
Ailerons and elevators are 'live' hinged at the centre line, flaps are pre-hinged but the supplied hinges are not glued in allowing for linkage and horn fixing before fianl fixing is done. Rudder is similar, pre-hinged but the robart hinge points supplied are not glued in, this is left to the builder to complete.
Finish is currently a painted in the mould, which is to a very high standard, options on colour schemes will be possible as well as customers 'own' designs - information of pricing for this will be available in a few weeks time.
Wing tubes are aluminium and are pre-fitted to the wings, wing tubes are pre-fitted to the fuselage at the correct incidence, one nice touch to the wing/fuselage joint is the intake bulges 'overhang' the mating location so when th wings are slotted in they are covered at the join
Stab and fin are mounted using aluminium tubes, pre-fitted to the stabs and the rear fuselage (for the fin).
More info as the build progresses............
marcs