Easy boys!

Not got too much done over the last few nights but I have now fitted the retracts and all of the airlines plumbed into the wings.

Simon has supplied the model with the scale undercarriage set. The main legs are a work of art, machined from aluminium billet and with dual springs. The legs on the full size hang when they have no weight on them and they compress quite heavily on the ground. These legs have a soft spring so that they hang in the air and compress on the ground with another spring for suspension on the ground and those not so perfect landings.

As previously mentioned the retract units have nipples for 4mm tubing but 3mm can be forced on with a little warming and stretching of the tubing.

M4 counter sunk bolts are used to hold the units into the wing. The wood selection of the retract mounts is incredibly good that just drilling and tapping the wood gave a very good thread formation. A drop of thin CA was put down the thread to strengthen it even more.

Next job is to mount the gear door covers to the legs. I’m planning on machining up some standoffs from aluminium bar and drilling the leg to accept a bolt through the door cover & standoff. A little bit of fiddling me thinks!

Steve

Another couple of pics

Steve,

Looking real good!

Simon

Ok advice needed.

I'm looking to fit the small doors which will cover the retract body when shut.

The problem I have is how to hinge it and what linkage and linkage position I should use.

I was thinking of a flat plate Kavan style hinge but because of the double skinned door I'd have to try and cut a slot into it for the hinge to fit. Ideas????

Also is there an easy way of working out the geometry of the linkage rather than trial and lots of error!??????

I guess that the easy option is to just fit the door on to the leg with a spacer but I'm not sure if it would look right as the full size seems to have this little door sitting a reasonable distance from the leg once opened.

Easier still would be to just leave them off completely but Simon is a bit of a perfectionist [:@]



Thanks

Steve

Well I think that I have now figured out how to hinge the outer gear doors. Because the hinge line is not parallel with the wing cord this small door needs to be hinged from its front corner.

I haven’t actually hinged it as of yet, I need to get some small Robart pin hinges but will have a go later in the week so wish me luck!

I’ve now got the middle doors attached to the legs after machining up some aluminium spacers and filing them to the correct angles and drilling and tapping the legs to M3. An M3 bolt passes through the door, spacer and is threaded into the leg.

The flaps are now also hinged. As you can see from the pictures the flaps are hinged as per the full size with resin mouldings housing a large Robart style hinge. These were aeropoxied into the mouldings and then to the corresponding positions on the wing and flap. The wing & flaps already have small slots machined into them to accept the flap hinge assembly making alignment very easy.

I have now also installed the aileron servos. We are using JR 8711DS servos on all of the major controls on this model. Now the wing does have a hatch cut into it for the servo to be fitted but no mount is supplied for either the servo or the hatch. I have used a really cool servo mount from Graupner. This mount is laser cut from ply and uses the servos strengthening web to hold it into the mount. This mount was then glued into the wing with aeropoxy.

The control horn is cut from glass board and it’s doubled up with a Graupner aluminium ball link sandwiched in between. One the glue has dried an M3 pushrod will need to be made up, extension lead routed and the hatch installed.

Here Simon, Ive found an ideal little practice ship for you (so you can test out your inverted manoeuvres )

Just been released by Graupner its a 1m span, composite fus with some nice detail, built up wings and tail and full ducting. Its got an all flying tailplane and really looks the dogs ! Comes with fixed undercarriage but I will be putting in a set of air retracts - drop in as its an option on the kit.


You NEEDone!

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Colin,

Why would I need one when I can use yours to practice on?

And before you go on about my flying please remember that it is Christmas - A time for sharing and giving!

Please have the hawk finished by Wednesday so I can fly it over the next few weeks!

Simon