Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
11-11-2003, 09:45 PM
#31
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RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
I just went to his website to look at the finished product. That is a good looking plane. He mentioned something about the models movement being "sensitive." Have you ever watched one fly? I may be interested in one but don't want something that makes me grit my teeth every flight.
I am anxious to see your finished product!
I am anxious to see your finished product!
11-11-2003, 10:47 PM
#32
RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
ORIGINAL: avicom
Gordon, It's looking great!!! How long it take's you to get to this stage and what power plant are you planing to install?
Regards
avicom
Gordon, It's looking great!!! How long it take's you to get to this stage and what power plant are you planing to install?
Regards
avicom
Powerplant : right now the plan is that it will either be the P120 from my Bobcat, or a new BMT 120 KS. Have not decided for sure yet.
Gordon
11-22-2003, 06:51 AM
#34
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RE: Building the Mick Reeves <span class=
Gordon,
You have a talent for explaining why the building sequence is such and then showing exactly the right picture. Would you consider cutting a cdrom and selling it with text & pics? Just a thought - outstanding thread...thanks for documenting the build. I enjoy threads like this more than any other part of RC Universe.
Regards,
Larry Brannan
You have a talent for explaining why the building sequence is such and then showing exactly the right picture. Would you consider cutting a cdrom and selling it with text & pics? Just a thought - outstanding thread...thanks for documenting the build. I enjoy threads like this more than any other part of RC Universe.
Regards,
Larry Brannan
11-24-2003, 08:27 PM
#35
RE: Building the Mick Reeves <span class=
Sorry - haven't been on RCU much since I dropped the moderator job, so I didn't see the last couple of posts until now.
I'd be happy to put any pics I have on a CD, along with some notes in MS Word, and send it to anyone who is thinking about building this model.
I don't know about the model's sensitivity - that could be a CG or control-surafec travel issue. I have a couple of updates that I will post just now. After that there may be a scarcity of updates for a little while as I will be away from home for a while, and when I get back I have a Kingcat to put together for a friend, and as of last week I finally did get my replacement Super Bandit wing kit... so the Hunter may take a back seat for a little while.
Anyway, here goes with the updates.
The flap is a very thin, yet very rigid assembly as shown below. The control horn is hiden totally inside the wing BTW, and the flap servo will be accessible from the wheel well.
I'd be happy to put any pics I have on a CD, along with some notes in MS Word, and send it to anyone who is thinking about building this model.
I don't know about the model's sensitivity - that could be a CG or control-surafec travel issue. I have a couple of updates that I will post just now. After that there may be a scarcity of updates for a little while as I will be away from home for a while, and when I get back I have a Kingcat to put together for a friend, and as of last week I finally did get my replacement Super Bandit wing kit... so the Hunter may take a back seat for a little while.
Anyway, here goes with the updates.
The flap is a very thin, yet very rigid assembly as shown below. The control horn is hiden totally inside the wing BTW, and the flap servo will be accessible from the wheel well.
11-24-2003, 08:34 PM
#36
RE: Building the Mick Reeves <span class=
Finishing the stab & elevator assembly was a slightly finicky job. The second skin is applied while keeping the assembly in a saddle to ensure that it is held straight, and then a balsa LE is added. The tip is a clear plastic moulding. It looks like there should have been a "double" tip rib for the stabs, such that the pro-skin is applied to one, and then the plastic tip is trimmed to lie over the other. There was no such rib supplied, so I just made one up.
Here are a couple of pics of the stabs with elevators in place.
Here are a couple of pics of the stabs with elevators in place.
11-24-2003, 08:37 PM
#37
RE: Building the Mick Reeves <span class=
The elevator actuator consists of wire rods that are glued into the elevators, and a rotating shaft mounted to the fuselage which has two slots machined into it - the wires in the elevators slide into these slots. This pic of the slotted shaft did not come out too well, and I don't have one of the elevator wires right now - will try to rectyify both of these oversights later.
11-24-2003, 08:42 PM
#38
RE: Building the Mick Reeves <span class=
I have also installed the gear and the associated formers in the fuselage now. This took a little thought, as the nose gear retract must be fitted from the bottom, yet will not fit through the openings for the gear doors. In the end, I elected to cut the gear doors exactly to their scale size, then cut a wider section out on either side of the rear gear door. The additional cut-outs will be removable and mounted via some poly-ply screws and tabs. (Pics later)
Here are a couple of pics of the model sitting on its gear for the first time:
Here are a couple of pics of the model sitting on its gear for the first time:
12-06-2003, 09:59 AM
#40
RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
I had been waiting on the drop-tank kit to arrive, before closing out the wing - that way I would be sure of getting the hardpoints in the correct location...
The drop-tank kit arrived from Mick last week. It really is a kit, and not a partial assembly as some manufacturers provide. Each tank is built up from a sheet of Proskin that you must roll into a cylinder, wooden parts used to support the skin and keep the cylinder round, 4 pieces of clear plastic that you must join to make the nose and tailcone of the tanks, plsu a host of other pieces that you assemble to make the pylon.
Below you can get an idea of some of the design of the tanks:
The drop-tank kit arrived from Mick last week. It really is a kit, and not a partial assembly as some manufacturers provide. Each tank is built up from a sheet of Proskin that you must roll into a cylinder, wooden parts used to support the skin and keep the cylinder round, 4 pieces of clear plastic that you must join to make the nose and tailcone of the tanks, plsu a host of other pieces that you assemble to make the pylon.
Below you can get an idea of some of the design of the tanks:
12-06-2003, 10:17 AM
#41
RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
My kit came with the hardware for only one of the two tanks, but replacement parts were easy enough to make.
I found that if I built a cylinder out of the proskin as described, the circular wooden formers didn't fit - the cylinder ends up being 4mm larger diameter than the formers. Using the diameter of the former, and multiplying it by Pi, I found that I needed to cut almost 1/2" off of the length of the proskin in order to end up with a properly sized cylinder.
Next, I built up the pyons and the centre section of the tank, then set about trying to mate them. The instructions gave no indication of how far along the tank the pylon gets mounted, so I dug out one of my Hunter books to get an idea of where to join the parts. At this point, I saw in the photos that the pylons I had just finished building seem to be totally wrong. Mick's kit has the pylons having vertical edges fore and aft, whereas the real aircraft very clearly has pylons that are raked quite sharply forward. The amount of rake is such that I can't salvage these pylons by cuttong, adding body putty etc - I basically need to throw them away and make some new ones from scratch.
I also have spent about 3 hours so far trying to get the clear plastic nose & tailcone parts to fit together properly. It's a nightmare.
At this point, I have found so much wrong with these drop tank parts and instructions, that I am simply giving up and throwing them away. I will put some hardpoints of my own in the wing before sheeting the underside, so that if I decide later that I still would like to have drop tanks on the model, I will build my own from scratch - it should be faster and much less frustrating than dealing with these horrible plastic mouldings. I have no idea why Mick puts these cheap soda-pop bottle parts in his kit... I (and I am sure, many others) would gladly pay extra for some properly moulded fibreglass parts instead of dealing with these horrible parts all over the model. (The wing-tips, stab tips, airbrake, etc are all made out of this stuff.)
Whenever I reach the "disgusted" point like this with a kit, I always hang it up for a while so as to prevent me taking a hammer to it
, so I'm now done with the Hunter for a while and am going back to a couple of BVM kits.
I found that if I built a cylinder out of the proskin as described, the circular wooden formers didn't fit - the cylinder ends up being 4mm larger diameter than the formers. Using the diameter of the former, and multiplying it by Pi, I found that I needed to cut almost 1/2" off of the length of the proskin in order to end up with a properly sized cylinder.
Next, I built up the pyons and the centre section of the tank, then set about trying to mate them. The instructions gave no indication of how far along the tank the pylon gets mounted, so I dug out one of my Hunter books to get an idea of where to join the parts. At this point, I saw in the photos that the pylons I had just finished building seem to be totally wrong. Mick's kit has the pylons having vertical edges fore and aft, whereas the real aircraft very clearly has pylons that are raked quite sharply forward. The amount of rake is such that I can't salvage these pylons by cuttong, adding body putty etc - I basically need to throw them away and make some new ones from scratch.
I also have spent about 3 hours so far trying to get the clear plastic nose & tailcone parts to fit together properly. It's a nightmare.
At this point, I have found so much wrong with these drop tank parts and instructions, that I am simply giving up and throwing them away. I will put some hardpoints of my own in the wing before sheeting the underside, so that if I decide later that I still would like to have drop tanks on the model, I will build my own from scratch - it should be faster and much less frustrating than dealing with these horrible plastic mouldings. I have no idea why Mick puts these cheap soda-pop bottle parts in his kit... I (and I am sure, many others) would gladly pay extra for some properly moulded fibreglass parts instead of dealing with these horrible parts all over the model. (The wing-tips, stab tips, airbrake, etc are all made out of this stuff.)
Whenever I reach the "disgusted" point like this with a kit, I always hang it up for a while so as to prevent me taking a hammer to it
, so I'm now done with the Hunter for a while and am going back to a couple of BVM kits.
12-06-2003, 10:43 AM
#42
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RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
Welcome back Gordon, hope your trip went as planned.
Not to worry, You will not be disgusted with the KC when ever BVM decides to ship it to us [>:].
Also, if you like more work, I have a beautifully built Balsa SB ready for primer and white base color only
Not to worry, You will not be disgusted with the KC when ever BVM decides to ship it to us [>:].
Also, if you like more work, I have a beautifully built Balsa SB ready for primer and white base color only
02-06-2004, 01:02 PM
#44
RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
ORIGINAL: tp777fo
Any updates?
Any updates?
The Super Bandit is now at the point where only the decals and the final clearcoat need to go on before reassembling it, so that probably means that I'll be back working on the Hunter by the end of the month. I'll post more here when I have it.
Gordon
02-06-2004, 01:45 PM
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RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
Hi Gordon,
How is the ProSkin? From the pictures it looks like it bows between the ribs. Does the skin stay flat like balsa sheeting would? If it doesn't I don't think you could replace it with balsa without major modifications to the wing componets.
Jon
How is the ProSkin? From the pictures it looks like it bows between the ribs. Does the skin stay flat like balsa sheeting would? If it doesn't I don't think you could replace it with balsa without major modifications to the wing componets.
Jon
02-06-2004, 05:46 PM
#46
RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
ORIGINAL: F106A
How is the ProSkin? From the pictures it looks like it bows between the ribs. Does the skin stay flat like balsa sheeting would? If it doesn't I don't think you could replace it with balsa without major modifications to the wing componets.
How is the ProSkin? From the pictures it looks like it bows between the ribs. Does the skin stay flat like balsa sheeting would? If it doesn't I don't think you could replace it with balsa without major modifications to the wing componets.
My biggest gripe with something like proskin, is that it will leave you no room for sanding if there is even the slightest area that has an imperfection.
As for replacing it with balsa ... Mick told me that his first two versions of the Hunter did use balsa sheeting. However, I think he must have redone the wing robs since then - if you applied balsa on top of the ribs right now then the whole wing would be too thick everywhere. This would be most noticeable where the root meets the fuz. If you tried to "skinny down" the ribs to account for the extra thickness of the balsa, then you may find that there is not enough meat left around some of the lightening holes. Not sure though - I haven't tried that, and I'm just guessing at potential problem areas.
On the plus-side - the proskin does result in a very rigid part. The flaps are incredibly skinny, yet they are rock solid with no flex.
Gordon
04-30-2004, 04:44 PM
#48
RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
Sorry Tom - nothing new just now. Got distracted by a few other projects, plus that day-job thing. I hope to get back to it in about 2 months, by which time my frustration at the "soda-bottle" platic parts will have abated enough for me to spend the time making up my own fibreglass parts instead.
Gordon
Gordon
08-25-2004, 10:33 PM
#50
RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
I'm now back to working on the Hunter again, though at a much slower pace than before.
I've now closed the wings out after deciding where to put the hardpoints, and I am making my own plugs to allow me to create fibreglass drop tanks instead of using the soda-pop plastic junk. I used the plastic parts as a rough guide for the size and shape, then grabbed some polystyrene blocks ; I routed a semicircular 1/2" diameter trough out of each polystyrene block so that I could insert a 1/2" dowel as shown. Then I glued and clamped the blocks together with the dowel in the middle:
I've now closed the wings out after deciding where to put the hardpoints, and I am making my own plugs to allow me to create fibreglass drop tanks instead of using the soda-pop plastic junk. I used the plastic parts as a rough guide for the size and shape, then grabbed some polystyrene blocks ; I routed a semicircular 1/2" diameter trough out of each polystyrene block so that I could insert a 1/2" dowel as shown. Then I glued and clamped the blocks together with the dowel in the middle: