ET

After SJN's experience and your comments, although not really wanting to, I took a screw driver to the mounts and it sure is the cheapest lite ply with minimal glue, relying on the strength of first layer of foam beads with zero glue fixing behind most areas. Thanks to you guys I've started the retro fix last night which will provide me with long term service. Still happy overall with this AMD Hawk model but it sure would have been much more frustrating without the help provided here.

Paul

Every AMD product I ever had had the same problem. It's one of those "you get what you pay for" issues, the planes are still a FANTASTIC value. The whole thing is easier if you just adress it right out of the box. Tear out those mounts and put in new ones. Any futher engineering you want to do to spread the loads on those mounts is cool, too, as the basic design is not particularly brilliant.
But the lite ply thing...even doubled up, that stuff won't really hold screws, it's too soft. Even IF the mounts hold, the screws will come out. Unscrewing the screws again and hardening the threads with CA will give you a few more flights, but it's just a temporary solution. Don't confuse "lite ply" with real plywood. I cannot tell by looking at the pic, but EVERY other AMD plane I have ever seen(except for this Reaper I have right now) had the same material in the mounts.

Im going to glass the elevators too........ prevent hanger rash

.

Sonnich

That looks like a solid installation. I can't face ripping mine apart at the moment so I have run thin cyano into all the joints and fitted two strips of triangular stock in the corners and glued this well to the retract box sides and the top skin as you suggested.

My Hawk only weighs 10lbs with the Wren 44 so I am hoping I will be lucky!!

John

I'm still at the retract install stage in my hawk. this has proved a valuable insight of where and what to be careful in doing.

John, I think you will be just fine!
If I had done the same as you before the first flight, im sure it would have held up. Zero glue, holds nothing

surly some others out there must have flown this plane by now.....come on guys.....chime in on your experiences!

Sorry I forgot about the gear problem. I was carving my gear mounts and the mounting plates fell off. I just remembered this after I saw your post on the gear. All I did was epoxy the mounts back in and glass it. Worked fine till the crash. the gear held up after the crash even though the wing was toast.

Sonnich

Nearly ready to maiden my Hawk and this May bank holiday weekend looks good for flying. Completed the retract upgrades, reinforced the box with ply, glassed the box area, let in dowels down the sides of retract boxes as anti roll/torque also as a solid fixing points. Turbine JJ1400 with full auto FADEC, radio JR PCM 9x and 900 rx, Orbit twin wall pipe, Euro Retracts, no oleos just yet until tested of our grass strip. However it goes on the day this one has been a really enjoyable on the bench to put together. Now what to do next??? A10 or Llightning both to be twin engined of course, I'll have get busy clear up the waste of ply, balsa, pizza boxes, coke cans, cold coffee and general junk just so I can find the building board again just a little chore before the next project commences[]

Paul

Paul

Best of luck with the maiden flight. My Hawk (Wren44 power) is finished apart from the landing gear, been waiting for springair parts for several weeks now. Seems there is a general problem with springair at the moment.

John

Thats great Paul. I realy hope your maiden flight goes well.
I havn`t come much further on my wing, as I have been fiddling with other projects.

The dual engined lightning would be very cool, build that first !

John,

Is it parts you need directly from SA? or do you need a retract set?

Dave

Dave

I need a set of 302 mains and a steering arm and wire guide to keep the nose leg straight while retracting (don't know what else to call it!)

Unfortunately it's on order from Mikes Models and they owe me a credit from a previous order so I guess I will just have to wait it out!

Luckily I have two other models to fly in the meantime. BTW the Ram sale is not going ahead at the moment as the guy's wife told him it was the Ram or a divorce! He didn't mind the divorce too much but his wife has the money!!

John

ok, let me know. pm me price est plz.

It's just that I was going to suggest ordering from Great Northern Models. I got hit with import tax when i ordered a set of 301's for my Hawk, but they still ended up cheaper than buying from in the UK, and I've got them!! came in about a week. Guys there are very helpful. Give 'em a ring and cancel your other order! you could be flying sooner

I'm in the process of resurrecting one of these kits from its out-of-box crappiness. I have a vision of a nice final product, but what I'm starting with is pretty sad.

ianober, I am pretty sure I was bidding against you at one point on ebay for these, haha! We each ended up with a copy of the same kit. I believe this kit is worse than SJN's as the hardware is much poorer (judging by pictures) and quality control is lacking, i.e., my stabilizer anhedral bars are bent at different angles. My kit does include a stab joiner, but it is slightly corroded. One of my stabilizers is asymmetrical while the other is symmetrical. I can easily see through the covering to the wood. The fuse gelcoat is translucent. The fuse has no blue paint on it. The list goes on. What I wanted to ask you all about was yet another problem--the trailing edge of my wing is much thicker than the control surfaces. Does anyone else have this problem? Picture below.

Sounds like yours is a little different


Heres a pic of mine:

my, doesn't quality vary!

Heh, nice cross section SJN...they are the same width! On the other hand I guess they dropped the whole recessed hinge approach and went for straight TE to bevelled control surface. Easier to manufactur I'd guess.

I just ripped covering off one wing to start fixing up the landing gear and hopefully reshaping the trailing edge to match the control surfaces. In the process I have discovered some of the sheeting not glued to the foam around the edges of the landing gear and servo cutouts. Any ideas how to reattach this? My ideas were to try to inject white glue or finishing epoxy resin between the foam and sheeting.

Polyurathane glue [sm=wink.gif]

SJN, looking at your elevator/rudder servo mounts, are you essentially building them into the airframe such that you would have to cut away fiberglass in the future to get access to them? How can you get to yours?

I am trying to think of a way to make them accessible...such as with a removable panel in the top of the thrust tube (still awkward, but at least workable) or a panel near the rudder-fuse interface (might weaken the structure quite a bit).

well, not realy, but the servos would be a severe pain to get out. The elevator servo is fairly easy, but you need an ultra short screw driver, or a bit and wrench to screw out the 4 screws.

The rudder servo is rubber RTV glued into the fin. I can either cut the rubber with a stanly knife blade, or cut out a hatch on the side of the fin.

But these HS-5954MG servos I have installed should last this airfrmes liftime
So Im not counting on taking them out.

You can also just do like the wren team, and install the servo beside the turbine. Then use a long pushrod down to the elevator....

Make it as you like....and do it safely

ohh, and the wingtip pic.

The hinges are still recessed ....its just that there is some glass covering the view so you cant see it from the side

slow but steady progress on my wing [8D]

cubeleo, yeah, it seems these CLONES are lacking quality for sure. I ended up machining a elevator joiner like Sonnich's. I am currently doing a build thread on RCSB on all the mods I am doing. You can see on there how bad my elevator aluminum bars are. Are your aileron servo hatches too small for the opening? Check out my thread, you may get some good ideas:
[link]http://www.rcscalebuilder.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=3613&PN=1[/link]