Miniflyer

Hey guys,

i just got my hands on an old Yellow Twin Hornet which definetly needs reworking. It apparently flew with oracover finish and glued-on canopy, the original flat wing mounts, an amt pegasus and a thrust tube which was installed diagonally and blowing out one of the exhausts, servos that were mountet way forward and had thin pushrods with lengths of around 1 yard.....not a healthy setup in my eyes, and overall not pretty.

I'm planning on tearing down the entire finish, putting in new tube-style wing tubes, glassing the surfaces and reworking all mounts, servos and linkages. It will fly on twin turbines when finished. It will be finished blue angels style......while it may be an overdone scheme, it is simply gorgeous, easy to do and highly visible.
I've already found out the corresponding paint numbers the BAs are using in FS standard paints.

As in all renovation projects, i will probably break some parts, and surely want to add some parts....i've written to Paul Reese but sadly did not get a reply from him, it seems he is rather busy.

Maybe some of you guys still have some stuff from RIP birds, leftovers, surplus or similar, or a tip where some parts are available.

-First of all i will need a Cockpit. How is the one from details4scale? Is the lighting worth the investment? Is there a better one around?
-Ducts for the twin df version, to make bypasses for the twin turbines.
-Canopy and canopy frame. The existing is scratched and will probably break anyway while trying to remove it.
-Paul Reese addons. The canopy frame and Vorticie fences would be interesting....
-Also if anyone happens to have a paul reese gear he wishes to get rid of.....

I'm glad and thankfull for all hints, tips, offers or heads-up. Thanks a lot guys
Best regards
Hank

Miniflyer

Noone out there with anything on the Hornet? Hard to believe
I'll post some pictures of the current condition of the airframe.

Meanwhile, can anyone confirm FS15052 and FS13655 as a good match for the BA Hornet? The blues apparently get their colors from Pratt&Lambert, but the FS are supposed to be a very close match.

Thanks
Hank

kevinthoele

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A friend of mine is doing some gear add ons and lex fences.

kevinthoele

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Here is another of the gear

Miniflyer

Now thats a great start. Looking pretty good so far Do you also have a picture or two of the fences? Is he doing this "commercially", eg selling it?

Thanks
Hank

edgeflyer

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Here's a link to the thread on them with pics of the lex fence in there also. I do make these.
http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/rc-j...r-details.html

Ron101

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You can get all the parts you need from yellow aircraft

Miniflyer

Brian: beautiful! Do you offer parts? Offer a mod? I'd be interested Also, do you change the springs and modify them? I've read and heard so much that the original setup is giving bad tracking and even worse shock absorbing for the high turbine setup weights.....i am considering adding oil shock absorbers.....

Ron, thanks, i know that some of the parts can be bought via Yellow. However some of the special addons (See Brian and Paul reese and the highdetail cockpit) are not AFAIK. Also, some people might still have some "spares" lying around that are no longer needed and want to get rid of that... Buying the stuff new that is not lying around is my next step

Best regards
Hank

edgeflyer

My Feedback: (15)

Hank, The parts I make are sleeves that slide over the stock Yellow Aircraft gear. My goal was to make a detail system that was affordable and could be installed by anyone with a dremel tool for minor fitting.The parts are very light, but not delicate within reason. I send them out painted, so all that is needed is to paint your stock gear to match with standard Rustoleum appliance epoxy white spray paint. It is a perfect looking scale paint and you don't have to have special paint guns. I hope to eventually make a stage 2 that adds on to the existing kit for more details, but I will do the canopy details before getting back to the landing gear. I believe most people change the springs in the mains. I'm sure lots of experienced YA bug pilots could chime in on what springs they are using. I have no experience flying this bird yet as the details orders have slowed my build on it, and I am working crazy hours at my real job right now. I know the plane tracks fine stock, but a gyro on the nose gear should make every takeoff uneventful. If you are interested, email me @ [email protected]. My theory on this plane is to go single unless you just have to have two candles. I have a behotec 220 for mine. 3.5 pounds at 49.5 lbs thrust is an unbeatable match for this plane. Do a rebuild thread on it, they never get old especially on a YA Twin Hornet!

Miniflyer

Brian,
that sounds great! I'll send you an email for some more infos, Do you also have some infos on the work you're doing on the canopy? Are you also doing a cockpit, or are you using a stock type? I'd really like to do a thread, i just seem to have the same issues you are having.....no time on my hands, plus parallel work on a 1/6 F-4, 1/5 T-38, and some old projects which are slowly gathering dust. Just not enough progress to keep it interesting....

I'm planning on going twin power wit +/-30lbs per candle. A friend hat one with 2 P120s and it had awesome performance, but they were just a tad too weak to save anything going single engine. His weighed in at 55lbs.

Here are some pictures of the status i pulled mine out. Not very well built and lots of stuff to rework. Also full outside rework to BA scheme....notice especially the horrible and dangerous servo setups and linkages!

edgeflyer

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I will be doing the canopy frame with the rear view mirrors, and the standard rear deck details with the lift motor etc... Dan Gill (Details 4 Scale) is making my cockpit. I had him alter it to properly fit the blue box pilots. I think my build thread is 2 years old now. Ha, that's sad! I am also working on some small stuff that I can get designed quickly for the big bug. I will surely continue to make more details for it for a while. Looks like you have a good base to start with, but I would look into replacing that rear spar bulkhead with the new design. Looks like that one has been hacked and lacks the new aluminum brace. I'd bet those wings also lack the carbon under the skins too. I think I would probably glass those with carbon cloth to update them without needing to build new wings to support the loads of a twin setup. I'm sure a lot of these planes have been flown without these mods, but if you're redoing it I would go the extra mile to make it a sound airframe. Also with the build being sub par, I would make sure the wing spar cavities are full of glue. The critical parts of this airplane are the spars and the spar bulkheads.

Miniflyer

Brian, thanks for the great and helpful Post!
Looks like i will be going with the details4scale cockpit as well, and refer to the same changes you had made. I'll be going with the 1/6 BBI Blue Angels figure,
As for the wings and spars: i will be adding a round high-tensile strength aluminum tube as main wing mount, passing through the entire fuselage and penetrating deep into the wing. The existing spars will be used more or less just as mounts. With the amount of work flowing into this i am considering making molds of the new wings for going "full composite", but this will take care of the issues with spar and bulkhead.
Turbines will be mounted right inside the nozzles without thrust tubes from current planning....

SDCrashmaster

I can pull Lex fences for ya. And they are extremely scale, with the master being made from photos I took of them specifically. I apologize if you contacted me and I didn't respond. I see no indication of that in my inbox.
Paul

Miniflyer

Brian, Paul, i sent you both either an email or a PN Thanks a lot for your contributions.

Miniflyer

Hi Guys,

holidays have been busy, but i am starting to dig p the project again. Attached you can see how i put an aluminum wing tube into an avonds F15. The F18 will be upgraded just like the F15 with a tube just forward of the original aft flat mount. It will pass through the entire fuse and into the wing on the other side.

Paul has also chipped in and offered to supply me with one of his absolutely superb canopy kits! Great, i'm so looking forward to getting my hands on that!

I've decided to go my own ways on the landing gear, but more on that later on.....work still in progress

Best regards and a happy new year to all

kevinthoele

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Mini We are in the process of composite wings for the F18. Plugs are almost complete and will have leading edge flaps and panel lines and access panel lines. Should be ready to mold very soon.
We are also working on cockpits as well. One that has real screens and one the same with static screens. It will fit blue box size pilot

kevinthoele

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Mini Do a search on youtube for yellow F18 build. Click on hornitpilot and scroll down to vids of progress.

Miniflyer

Hi Kevin!

Looking good so far, i'm just not at all happy with the flat spars protruding just partially through the wing....i want a tube running through the entire fuse to leave as little moments on the fuselage as possible.

Are you planning on doing the scale hinging? The hornet has that damn complicated lever system to actuate the gap covers of the lower-hinged flaps and ailerons....these are the things that make me worry about doing composite wings.

Do you have some details on the cockpits?

Best regards

ww2birds

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Hank,

Great project, best of luck with it.

I got one of the ARF F-18s from Yellow a few years ago. It really is a beautiful plane. I have the D4S lighted cockpit which is very nice (a little heavy but you need the noseweight anyway!). I also got a set of Brian's gear covers, which are not yet installed (sorry Brian!) but they are very very nice .. highly recommended.

When I built mine, I thought long and hard about a single vs a twin .. I had always wanted to do a twin. At that time, the only viable option was the "160-size" motors and two of those was just too heavy and too short a flight (even with the nice JetTech aftermarket tanks (100 oz each)). FWIW, my plane came out at about 44# dry, which is a bit porky .. I know you can do better that that.

Now with the new 100-class engines which are 20+ Lbs of thrust and small and light I think a twin would be viable .. but you really have to think a lot about total weight and fuel capacity. I ended up with a single (180) and split pipe which is fine. But a twin is so cool...

I put the elevator and rudder servos in the rear of the main compartment .. partly for space/heat reasons and partly for CG reasons .. I used CF pushrods with a center brace/guide on the mid-former. It would be cleaner to put them in the back .. but I suspect you will be wanting to move all the weight fwd. Would be interesting to see what the rest of they guys have experienced on this.

I also put in the D4S lighting system which is very well made and really spices up the airplane.

One other decision is wheels and tires .. the Yellow foam tires are not the most durable. I went with Glennis on mine .... very pretty but again, rather heavy. I've heard that some people have had good luck finding some rubber tires (Sullivan maybe?) that fit the Yellow wheels... that might be a good compromise.

I did make my tailhook operational .. not too hard to do and looks cool on a flyby.

Let me know if there is anything else I can help with.

Dave

edgeflyer

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The wings will have scale hinges and working hinge gap covers as well as a front flap system. They will also have panel lines that match the fuse and a static scale wing hinge. The wings will use the stock spar system to allow retrofitting. They will be load tested thoroughly. Bob's method of glassing uses a lightweight foam backing to the glass that adds lots of additional strength at virtually no weight penalty. These components are being built by modelers for their own planes, so believe me, they will be built to not fail. A wing tube through the fuse is overkill IMHO as the only recorded failure was from an apparent modification. There are special aluminum braces in the new turbine kits to address fuse strength with much less work than installing a tube. I understand building the plane to be in your comfort zone though. I'm loving the interest this plane is getting now.

Miniflyer

Brian, Kevin, please do keep me updated on your wing progress! Very interested in seeing your work, and if you're willing to part with a set of wings....
Concerning the tube all the way through the fuse....yes, it might be an overkill, but has proven strong and light over yeary. Since all bending moments "equal out" in the tube there is hardly any load on the fuselage at all except axial loads, so structure can be very light here. I also usually brace the retract mounts against the tube, so that all landing shocks are distributed through the entire airframe and wing structure equally. If i can get my hands on your wings then i might go without it, but doing my own i will surely add the tube.
Anyway, please do keep me up to date, and if you want feel free to let me know about what you want for a set of your wings. I'm very interested.

I will be posting some things i am doing to the landing gear in a few days/weeks, but want to work out all the CAD details before going "public" . FWIW, i might be doing my own lightweight rubber wheels for the Hornet.....depending on what i find.

Best regards
Hank

kevinthoele

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Sounds good mini. We will keep you in the loop on wings and the plan is to make some available

Shaun Evans

Kevin,

I watched the videos, but I didn't see anything on the composite ones. Am I looking in the wrong place?

edgeflyer

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Go to you tube, and search big f18 build. There are multiple videos on the build. We decided to have molds made half way through the build, so the wing videos are the one's for Kevin's build. At this point it just appears that Bob is building wings, but he is actually building plugs for the molds. If you click on Hornitpilot on any video link, it will take you to a page with recent uploads.

Shaun Evans

Brian,

I'm gonna throw this laptop against the wall. Can you please just send me the link?