Thanks for the reply Dave. Lots of great info in this thread from all!

Not sure why this happened but I had expected to have all of my batteries close to the back of the cockpit based on fuselage only CG. Today I got it all assembled, gear down, UAT full but otherwise dry and balanced it at approx 196mm. My balance rig was dead simple and very accurate, a stack of bricks with a 1/4" plastic dowel across the bottom of the fuselage. Gets the wheels just off the ground and you simply roll the jet over the dowel like an ancient Egyptian and hit your marks. I needed to move all the batteries forward to just behind the former at the nose gear to get a perfect CG. That is 2 2300 mAh LiFe Rx batts and the Jetcentral LiFe ECU pack. I knew something wasn't right when it wanted to sit on its tail without the DerJet cockpit tubs and canopy in place...

I am trying to decide whether to fly it first or go ahead and put the fuselage strakes, bunny ears, and stabilizer covers on first. The bunny ears won't affect the CG but the strakes and stab opening covers will. Has anyone had any issues with those stab to fuselage covers? It looks like I will have to do a bit of grinding on the stabs to avoid the covers jamming, there is not enough clearance on one side. Maybe I will just screw them on the stab root faces with the little flat head screws BVM sells. That would be a good way to be sure they are not binding before I glue them. Those big holes in the aft fuselage are not too pretty.

Boy it sure looked good sitting there on the floor!

Husa,
I only put the stab covers on the top and yes one side was tighter than the other but I sanded the covers down as opposed to the stab and it was enough to not rub against the fuse.

I didn't use them on either of my two hawks, I didn't like the fit, too close for comfort. Rather have the holes open then have the stab jab up in flight. Can't remember what scheme you have but, you can hardly notice them on the display scheme. You can see them on the Red Arrows scheme

Mike

Mike, I understand the concern. I had it as well but then realized that even if you epoxied them to the stab and the fuse, the torque(almost 700 oz/in my case) of the two servos on the stab would rip it right off.

Thanks Marty, glad to hear you had to do some grinding as well. Makes me less worried to just go for it.
I gutted my BVM pilot figure, believe it or not the internals on that guy weigh 11 oz. Reproducing him in foam and wire will take a couple hours. Pilot figures are so annoying, they look great in the air but out of place in the pits.

The original has two 3600 2s Li-Po Rx packs on the trays either side of the nose mount and a 5200 2s Li-po central right behind the nose cylinder...and some weight, as I have never fitted the full cockpit set and pilot. So not unusual.

Dave

Tail plane was no better than rudder when it came to pin holes, so out came the Upol Dolphin Glaze again...
taking off all the colour and going down to white/fibreglass took off 41g so well worth taking the colour off.

On another note I had to have my car bonnet/hood re sprayed (insurance job or I would have sprayed it!) and the guy came to my house complete with spray booth. Cut a long story short but he gave me a sanding tool that takes extraction and some sanding papers, well this turned out to be very good and well recommended, they use a Velcro hook system to fit on but the sanding stick on is made from a resin base material but it rips through filler very easily and when you rip off the sanding disc the debris just falls off! These are used in auto re finishing trade but I am sold on them all P grit sizes up to 800 available

Alan

On with painting the tail plane today as I got a feeling our summer is about to end!

Alan



managed to get the white done today with just red and black left

Looking good Alan. BTW, I purchased 2500 grit sandpaper (all they had) and a line of products available in the states called "Novus" which is two different grades of scratch remover compound and a final shine. I got the stuff at a plastic supply house. It took a lot of elbow grease but the scratches are gone (I think it looks better than out of the box after the final polish) and with the Tailormade det cord, Derjet cockpit, and BVM pilot in position it looks killer. Thanks!

Yep forgot to add 'you will need a lot of elbow grease'

Glad you got the scratches out! Where are the pics?

Alan

I will get some pics together but you all know what it looks like! Today my "jet guru" Jack D. had a look, gave it his blessings, and we put it together and ran the Cheetah. Just gotta check my throws, expo etc, and fly it now... I set up the throws according to the manual. Did you guys find those to be good? Also there is a large leeway for expo in the manual, 25 to 45% for elevator and 15 to 35% for rudder. Generally, speaking of expo, do you guys find the Hawk to be sensitive or insensitive? I just want to avoid having a tiger by the tail that first flight, LOL.
Exciting stuff!

As I continue to check over the Hawk I wonder if I should be concerned as one of the main gear wheels is pretty "draggy", I mean one side the wheel turns freely, it won't spin but it is easy to turn. On the other side it is a little hard to turn by hand. I rolled it down the street and checked the brakes and of course it is not so noticeable pushing it around.
Should I just fly it and see if it loosens up or do these CARF stock gear need to be lubed and adjusted somehow to spin with equal resistance before flight?

you should have both free, if not you will be fighting the draggy side with rudder on your take off and landing runs. My gear was fitted with Intairco wheels (looks more scale) so i cant comment on what you should do free yours up, but if the wheels are on with a nut on the axle try backing it off a bit until its free.

Disassembly revealed that the grease in the wheels had basically turned to glue. This a a new gearset so it must have sat awhile. Cleaning and reapplication of BVM grease has the wheels spinning freely, with no brake drag. What is really weird is both the socket head shoulder bolt axles were bent! Both bent at the start of the threads. And this gear has never flown... Luckily I was able to source replacements at a local hardware store, cheap Chinese hex heads but I imagine they will hold up. Toe in is still fine. Rolled the Hawk around today and ran it again, with the brakes cleaned and greased it rolls and brakes perfectly. Plus the Anti-skid function on the EV5 is really nice, proportional brakes!

Another issue is the gear hangs down slightly when retracted. There is some play in the gear locking mechanism. I set everything up with the wing upside down and it will certainly fly that way occasionally so in that orientation the gear doors are perfectly aligned with the wing. But if you flip everything right side up the gear hangs about 1/16" down. So the gear doors are slightly open. Hopefully this is normal and not a problem in flight.

same as mine. It will get worse as the gear parts wear.

Stan

Hey Guys, just sharing some pics of our Hawks here in Honduras, at the yearly event held in San Pedro Sula. ( Alas del Merendon 2013 )

Nice venue! Looks like your event had good local support as well

Still think the Hawk is a good looking aircraft not just because I have two, but that's why I brought them!

Alan

Thanks for posting those pics. I was really happy to see what your friend did with the CARF 2010 Display Scheme. I like that he painted the fuselage strakes to match and just applied the Tailormade decals to the factory color scheme as it looks really good even though not exactly to scale..

My Hawk came with a "false nose section" with the molding for the pitot tube. Kenrico, did you guys use that? Or just glue on the pitot tube bump only? I am not trying to make my Hawk look exact scale, but a few things, like those pitot tubes, really seem to make the Hawk look cool.

I took the edge of the pitot molding down to around 4mm and sanded paint off fuselage and fixed on with Hysol, as I make the pitot probes I also make a 4mm insert that you Hysol into the molding that way you can unscrew the probe. Just in process of making another probe that will be on its way over the pond when finished...

Alan

Guys,

What about cockpit options? I've seen threads about the Skymaster one (for their small Hawk). I also found Fei Bao has one for their 120 Hawk. Any comments or suggestions?

Regards,

Mucio

DerJet cockpit looks the best and is the most rugged, but cost the most. Skymaster's looks nearly as good for 1/2 the price, but is weak in areas.

I got the Der Jet cockpit from my CARF Rep here in the states and a BVM pilot figure. I think the Der Jet cockpit was very easy to instal, I had no bad surprises (thanks dubd!) and I will post pics soon. Basically though, I had to cut away some of the front tub to allow the gear to retract and extend without binding, and I had to cut away some of the rear tub to allow for my placement of the UAT and those stiff 6mm fuel lines. I placed 1/2" by 3/4" balsa rails either sidewall of the fuselage a bit below the fiberglass fuselage side rails and after start up I simply pop the tubs in place and slide them into position. They are not fixed to the canopy. I doubt I spent more than 30 minutes actually altering the tubs, simple. The BVM pilot is a little large but looks good to me. I removed the torso, arms, legs, etc, and replaced with EPP foam and wire for joints, saving about 10 oz. in the process.