Typhoon Phil

As an ex RAF Harrier engineer, a couple of years ago I thought it would be good to bring together my experience of working on the full size aircraft and my 25yrs of building and flying model aircraft, more recently jets. So I set out to build a 1:7th scale, fully functioning model of the iconic aircraft. At the time Skymaster had the fuselage but no functioning powerplant. So I started my project and learnt new techniques like plug and mould making (YouTube and the internet are wonderful learning tools) but work commitments nd other modelling projects didn't allow me to spend as much time on it as I would have liked. But with a new year came new invigoration to get back onto my Harrier project but with one big difference..... a quick look at the fuselage plug brought a realisation that I needed more space for the powerplant and some of the systems, so I made the decision to start afresh but at 1:6 scale. The original plans were upscaled and printed off, as were all the cross sectional shapes.... within a couple of weeks, I have the front fuselage (cockpit) section plug pretty much to shape in grey foam (same spec as closed cell blue foam) and the main fuselage plug roughly cut to shape. I do have a build blog on Facebook (just search out "RC Harrier Build" if you want to follow it on FB but I will also endeavour to do regular updates on here too.... any and all suggestions and comments are gratefully received..... regards Phil

Typhoon Phil

Central spine made with 30mm grey foam and cross sectional shapes from 30 & 50mm grey foam.

Using the 1:48 plastic model as a reference, its simply a case of upscaling all measurements by a factor of 8.

Again, using the 1:48 plastic model as the reference to check measurements are correct.

Foam half frames glued onto a 30mm grey foam spine

Viper1GJ

My Feedback: (20)

Subscribed! Very interesting project.

drorso

How funny! I was watching the history channel. 2nd season of Air Warriors, the chapter on the Harrier. I thought to search and see if there is any build thread and then i see this.

I'll follow up, thanks for sharing.

Dror.

Typhoon Phil

So to give a visual comparison of size, heres my 11yr old grandson Max holding up the plugs.....

ravill

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Very cool! I hope you stick with it and share with us!

paulinfrance

Interesting, with todays electric turbines brushless motors and drone technology, why not a flying model ?.

Typhoon Phil

p
Paul this will be a flying model.... a fully functioning RC Harrier capable of conventional and vertical flight as well as transitions between the two..... I want to make it powered by a proper miniature Turbo Fan engine (as per the full size Pegasus engine) ..... EDF power could be an option too.