WhoDaMan

My Feedback: (164)

Excellent choice going with an known power plant. I love the plane and yours has turned out to be a labor of love, I hope you get many fligts on her, are you going to buttonwillow? I will be back east that weekend, so get lots of pic's.

Talk soon I hope,,,, Dave

mickreeves

Can anyone show me a good photo of the fighting cock logo on Hunter XF515. If I ever get the time to rebuild my prototype, I would like to finish it in that scheme.
Fixing the pushrod O ring in place, try a short piece of brass tube which is a tight fit.
Gordon, would you mind if I put a picture of your Hunter on my site? Better, how about a shot out in the sunshine?
Thanks , Mick

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Mick - I have several pics of the fighting cock, along with .psd etc images that I used for getting the decals made, thanks to a lot of extremely helpful people here on RCU who helped find a suitable pic and even took the time to do tidy-up artwork for me totally free of charge. BTW, Corgi also does a Hunter model finsihed in that same scheme.

PM me your current email address and I will shoot them across to you early next week (I'm heading down to a jet meet right after work today, so won't be near my home computer until Sun / Mon). Let me know if you have any size or bandwidth issues with your ISP (i.e. should I send a couple of pics at a time rather than all bundled up into one larger zip file, etc).

You're welcome to use any of my pics you like - construction shots for any manual updates if you wish, and / or 'posing' shots of the (not quite) completed aircraft for whatever use you wish. If you want larger pics than are posted on the site (since RCU resizes them to keep filespace under control) then just identify the pic by the post number and the row / column position of the pic and I will shoot you my larger pics.

I'll post some better later, hopefully take some better ones without so much crap in the background, in decent light etc., and with the seat & pilot in place etc. - yesterday's pics were just a "by the way" afterthought as I moved stuff temporarily out of the garage to get room to pack my van for the trip to California Jets.

For the o-ring - as far as I can tell, I was getting the ring well seated. I even used a vernier to take a measurement of the depth of the recess, and the thickness of the o-ring, so that I could verify that the o-ring was being pushed fully into the recess. Seemed to be all the way in. Late last night though, I noticed that there was a small spot of 'crud' (that's a technical term for some kind of indeterminate dirt) sitting fairly solidly on the pushrod on that one cylinder. My supposition at this point is that as the pushrod slid in & out through the small o-ring, that crud effectively increased the diameter of the pushrod at that spot, so that that one spot had more resistance ; over a number of cycles that just caused the o-ring to dislodge. If my guess is right then I just have to be extremely careful about keeping the pushrods clean in order to avoid a repeat of the issue.

Regards,
Gordon

mickreeves

Thanks for the offer. Im at [email protected]
My site www.mickreevesmodels.co.uk
Mick

g4rko

Have you flown the Hunter yet? If so, how did you find it?

Barry

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

No .. due to averaging 15 to 17 hr work days, 7 days a week, for the last century or so (at least that's how long it feels), I've had precious little time to make progress on the few remaining items. I did get a tiny bit more rigging done 3 weeks ago, but who knows when (or if) this project might ever be completed.

In case you haven't seen it, there's a multi-part build article in RCJI, about the MRM Hunter. Colin's doing a great job with his review and has done at least an initial test hop on his bird.

Gordon

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Well, the big day finally came yesterday.

I'm fortunate to have some truly exceptional pilots around me, so when it came to the maiden I had abolutely no hesitation in putting the ego aside and getting the annoyingly good (for flying anyway, if not for anything else) Dave Presta handle the test flights for me.

First flight required a few clicks of aileron trim, and showed some tail heavy tendencies despite using the latest CG info published on Mick's site. It wasn't wickedly tail heavy though - just not quite right. For the 2nd flight we strapped an extra small nicad pack in the nose - don't know yet where that moved the CG to, but it made all the difference in the world. The aircraft now seems well balanced, and very well behaved.

Since I had no idea what flap & airbrake throws and or mixes to use, I just guessed at throws and Dave took the aircraft to a safe altitude to add inter then full flap, and inter then full airbrake. None of these actions caused the slightest trim change, which is pretty awesome - I was expecting to have to mix in some elevator to handle a pitch chage, but none seems to be needed.

There is a slight problem with the nose gear steering - not enough authority despite seemingly large throws. Even though the aircraft taxied dead straight on the taxiway which faced directly into wind, on the takeoff roll with a 90 degree crosswind of maybe 4 or 5 knots, it took full left rudder to keep it tracking straight. That needs some thought.

Also, although the brakes worked fine when tested before the maiden, they didn't work at all on landing. Fortunately the field selected for the test flight has about 3 or 4 thousand feet, so a 700 or so ft rollout was not a problem.

All in all, a pretty decent outcome for the maiden. Now I just need to find the time to take are of these few squawks, and then it will be my turn on the sticks.

BTW, just before the first flight, I fitted one of Tam's new gear failsafe units - what a great piece of kit this is, and it took only a few minutes to retrofit into the model. it fits in between the RX and the gear servo, and taps into the gear air pressure line so that it monitors the pressure and over-rides the transmitted gear position to drop your gear if the air pressure falls below a user-selected threshold. A heck of a good idea.

Thanks again to Dave for the impeccable test-pilot work. I give him plenty of s**t, coz we all know he deserves it - but the guy delivers the goods when needed so I guess we should keep him around for a little while longer.

A few pics from Saturday:

CJ2002

Well done, Gordon - it looks stunning! The landing shot could be a photo of the real thing...the 'sit' is perfect!

Cheers,

Dick
England

WhoDaMan

My Feedback: (164)

Gordon:
Well done, what an awesome picture on final,,,, may she last you a full life of fun.

Great job Dave and well deserved.

Dave

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Thanks guys !

The people who usually bring out the ultra high dollar cameras were not present this weekend. Lou did a great job getting some pics such as that landing shot with one of my crappy little cameras, then Scott (RCU id GSR) stepped up and saved the day with these awesome pics:

Gerald Rutten

Finally maidened!!!![sm=thumbup.gif] Congrats all the way!

Indeed a really terrific picture as you where standing allong the runway some 35 years ago....:


What´s the all-up weight of your model Gordon??

Best regards,
Gerald

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

I honestly have no idea. I know it's nowhere near the AMA limits, so I didn't bother weighing it. The guys who helped me pick it up to put it on & off the stand remarked at how light it was for such a large model, and also asked me about the AUW -- so I guess that sooner or later I'll have to weigh the parts just so that I can answer.

BTW, Scott posted some video:

The Flying Scot

Gordon

Congratulations on a superb looking model, love the landing shot. You have given me the encouragment to complete mine now.

regards

Arthur

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Good to hear from you again Arthur ... hope all is well on the home front.

Don't worry if it's taking you a while ... look at how long mine took !

This is the longest I have ever taken to get a model finished. It seems that life just has a way of stepping in and rearranging your priorities for you sometimes.

Dave Presta

My Feedback: (3)

Well, Gordon pretty much summed it up but I thought I would add a few things.
I have watched the progress of this plane for the last 4 years, and have seen Gordon spend countless hours building and rebuilding (he's kind of a perfectionist if you havent realized it already), so when it came the day that he asked me to test fly his plane I knew that it would be built as good as it could be. The first flight being a bit tail heavy (not bad bad, but not correct) the plane came in for landing with a decent amont of nose up attitude, but when we added noseweight for the next flight I was pleasantly suprised to find that the AOA on landing was the same, this makes for easy landings when you dont have to really work to get the nose up to slow it down. I used a bit more throttle then needed to control my decent, and the plane just floated on by and landed about 100ft longer then where I was aiming....I was sort of stand off-ish to get it really slow because of it being the maiden, and will not hesitate to let it hang in any future flights. The presence in the air on this bird has to be seen in person to get the real effect, and we all stood there during the flights saying "WOW, this thing looks incredible in the air".
All in all, Gordon did a great job building this kit and I am very happy that he was rewarded from a succesfull day at the field. Congratulations Gordon, thanks for giving me the honors bud......Sorry about you having to sleep in the Van outside our hotel room!
Cant wait to see it in the air again,
Dave

swissflyer

great plane..great build..great pilot..magnificent photo!!

my compliments!!![sm=thumbup.gif]

mick15

Congratulations gordon very impressive, makes all the work worthwhile dunnit. i have no wish to steal your thunder but had half an hour in a two seat hunter on monday......WOW what a tool!! i have lots of other pics if you are interested

regards m

CJ2006

Mick,

That looks like Kemble...did you do it with Delta Jets?

Cheers,

Dick (jealous...very, very jealous!)

PS...off over to Kemble next weekend to take part in Static display at Delta's 10th birthday celebs...and to stroke a Hunter or two!

mick15

you are right dick, you won't have trouble stroking a hunter they are everywhere.

m


oops just highjacked gordon's thread

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

No worries about a " hijack" Mick - anything about Hunters is good

I thought about doing a Hunter hop too, any time I'm back in the UK, but haven't managed it yet. Even though I personally feel that the 2 seater Hunter is kinda ugly compared to the single seater (why didn't they make it tandem, to preserve those beautiful lines ??), a flight in ANY Hunter is a thrilling prospect.

Go ahead and post more pics - wheter in this thread or in one of its own - you never know whether any details you show may help someone out.

Cheers mate, and congrats on being a lucky sod !

Gordon

mick15

gordon, luck had nothing to do with it


ps gordon you didn't really mean it when you said that was ugly did you?

john agnew

Gordon

Well done! The Hunter looks superb, especially against those sunny Californian skies.

John

ColinS

Dear Gordon,

Many congratulations on your successful test flights, your Hunter looks magnificent, both on the ground and in the air.

I hope to complete the painting and finishing of my Hunter within the next few weeks, but given the likely weather by then in the UK it may not get much flying until next spring, I envy you the weather you have to suffer!!

When you next fly the model do you think you will be able to get more flying photos?

Colin Straus

Gordon Mc

My Feedback: (11)

Cheers Colin - I look forward to seeing the next installment of your review, to see pics of the painted model. Hope you got the decals working OK now.

Yup - I'll try to get more flying shots next time ... will see if some of my buddies with expensive cameras will come along. (Mine are cheapos).

As for suffering the weather - it's a tough job mate, but somebody's gotta do it Come out and share the hardship with us, if you like !

Actually, the weather just about knackered me that day. It wasn't the warmest day ever, by any means - just about 102 degrees, but it was humid, and I got so focussed on all the prep work on the model that I didn't notice how much sun I was getting. I had a 10ft x 12ft EZ-up shade, but given the size of the Hunter, and the other models I had under the shade, I was actually working out in the sun much more than I realised. Started getting a bit light-headed each time I stood up, and only when I realised that I'd drunk 11 cans of soda and 3 litres of water without any of it coming out as anything other than sweat, did I realise I was seriously dehydrated. Fortunately, one of our group is in beer sales, so he was able to rehydrate me after the flying and driving was done for the day. ;-)

Eddie P

My Feedback: (4)

Wow Gordon, I just saw this thread - an amazing level of work demonstrated. The series in RCJI has been great to follow too. I've had a thing for Hunters for a while, what a nice setup. Do you plan to fly it at any future west coast rally's this upcoming season?