RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Hi Eddie,

Not sure which events I'll have her at. Since all of my vacation days for 2007 are already booked (!) I probably won't be driving to many jet shows this year - just the ones that I can reasonably do in a Friday evening to Sunday evening round-trip.

With the California Jets event being moved up a bit to be earlier in the year (per popular demand) it makes it less certain that I can attend ; we usually have major work deadlines in the latter half of April, but I will do my best to be there... would be good to meet up with all of the EDF guys again.

Catch ya later,
Gordon

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Believe me... I know how it is - Re: Work and Rallys. Anyhow, your Hunter is amazing and I'll keep my fingers crossed to see it in action sometime this season.

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Gordon, panel lines in the fuselage mold? I cant tell from the pics......

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Yes - there are lines in the fuselage. For the wing & stab, you have to do those yourself if you want them, since you are just covering those surfaces with flat poly-ply.

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Thanks.....it looked like there might have been some lines on the fuse, but I couldn't tell......

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Its 'ProSkin'
'Poly ply' is by another fellow.
Mick

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Oops - my mistake ! It is indeed Proskin ... much cheaper than poly-ply, in much larger sheets too.

Gordon

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Hi Gordon and all

If anyone's looking for a scheme for the Hunter I have some great pics from a photographer in the UK ...Geoffrey Lee. He flew with his camera on the last sortie of Hunters out of Brawdy,1985. These are FGA9's of the No1 TWU (Tactical Weapons Unit) ..79 Squadron. (I also have the badge from the RAF Museum). If anyone's interested I can give you his details. The thing I like about the subject is it's a "working" aeroplane ...you know ...dirty and all. I have his sheet of contact prints if anyone would like them.... you could order from those images as I did.

I'm working slowly on a Reeves Hunter but I've just had surgury on my shoulder so it's going to slow me up even more than usual. I've devised a mod to allow full cockpit detail but have part of the module removable to allow the wings to be fitted easily. Could do some pics if anyone's interested.

Cheers ... Brian Borland

Cheers ... Brian Borland

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

By all means share your cockpit pics... might give us some great ideas. For the pics for a scheme, Mike (wd40) may be interested since he is building up a Hunter or two.

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Yes, Please post the pictures of the cockpit I need all the help I can get there.

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

OK.

I hope you guys don't think this is all taking it a little too far. I decided I need to have a full cockpit build and I could see dificulties getting to the wing tube bolts. What you see here is the start ..as I said I've had an operation on my shoulder ..I'm right handed and yes it's the right shoulder ... so I can't do too much for about 6 weeks!

In brief I made a set of canopy rails from K&S brass "U" channel and K&S "L". Solder one to the other and it leaves a nice little slot for the tabs that the canopy attaches to. I removed the front portion of the fairing aft of the canopy on the fuse with a razor saw....there's a panel line there full size ..and made a couple of additional part formers. The rails are mounted in ply supports and the entire structure slides into a support where the full size rail cut-outs are. (This is a simple build onto the top inside edge of the cockpit openning) The rails are located at the front ends with pegs and the unit is secured with 2 srews ar the rear edge of the fairing.

What you see in the pics is very basic yet but the removable setion will include the seat, with pilot and control column, all attached to the floor section as well as the sliding part of the canopy. All the side wall detail in the cockpit will remain in place. This allows full access to the section aft of the cockpit to get to the wing tube.

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Sorry ... I forgot to tell you that you would have to mod the top edge of the cocpit opening. As moulded it has a flat on it which acts as a base for the regular canopy/hatch set-up. Obviously the side consoles and all the other detail is miles away yet but I hope you get the idea. I have a lot of references to share if anyone wants info on the Hunter cockpit..

You're a luck dog having yours flying Gordon!

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Hi Brian, nice work there! See you next WC flying this Hunter??;)

Cheers,
Gerald

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Hi Gordon ...Gerald and all

Thanks Gerald ... say Hi to Mum and Dad for me.

I'm not too pleased with the quality of what I've done so far. It was going to be a "test" to see if the idea would work, but you know how things are. With time against me due to one reason or another it can be "dollied" up to look more like a masterpiece..on the outside at least!

I know some people think we're nuts for putting a lot of effort into cockpits but it's something that's just as important as the outside to me. I had wondered about doing a kit for the cockpit interior but I doubt the market is big enough for the effort and mold cost...we'll see.

Re the World Champs in Poland...yes I'd like to think I can have it done and that is now my target. I was hoping to take it to the Jet Masters this year but a whole heap of things got in the way...as they do.

There are a number of things I'm changing ..like fitting new retracts and foam cored tailplane/elevator unit as I have an issue with both of these things. Having said that I think it's an exciting model. To me it's the "Spitfire" of the jet world, a most elegant aircraft.

I hope you don't mind me hogging your site Gordon. I'd be happy to continue adding updates with my Hunter if thats OK with you. I need to get this finished so I can complete my Vampire prototype.

Cheers .. Brian ;)

RE: Building the Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter
 

Dave Platt has a whole DVD, about 2 hours, on building the cockpit for his Hawker Hunter. I really enjoyed and learned a lot, but making the gauge needles was a little too much for me!
It might be worth it to get a copt.
BRG,
Jon

Let's see if bringing this old thread back to life works...

So I bought this Mick Reeves Hawker Hunter kit over a year ago. I've always liked the look of the Hunter and how this one was built and I was always curious about how the sheeting with Proskin worked. I forgot exactly who I bought it from, but it had made the rounds before I got it. I think Sean McHale and Kirk Sonnier both owned it at one time.

I started building it when I first got it, but then I got stalled on other projects. It turned out that was a good thing, as in the mean time, Kirk offered me a set of gear from his now defunct Ripmax Hunter ARF (thanks again Kirk!). I got the gear, but it was still a few months before I could get back to it.

I thought I'd post a few pictures of the build on this thread as I go...

I had built the wing structure and sheeted one side with Proskin before I had stopped the build. I was worried about the strength of the wing and landing gear mounts in it. The main spar is laser cut ply as are the ribs that the gear mounts key into and the plywood was not exactly "aircraft quality." In order to strengthen the structure, I laminated the key parts with carbon cloth and epoxy. This added little weight, but increased the strength of the parts immensely.

I also laminated the inside of the Proskin with carbon cloth where the gear mounts were located.

Bob

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2057748http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2057750http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2057751

The Ripmax gear fit into the mounts with just a little modification to the ribs holding the mounts and to those where the gear leg and wheel are stowed.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2057753

One issue that arose though was that the wheels and struts on the Ripmax gear are beefier (a good thing!) and thus deeper than the originals in the kit. As a result, the wheel needed to stow right up against the upper skin in order to lie completely within the wing. In the stock kit, there is a balsa "doubler" under the upper skin between ribs 1 and 2 to carry the structure from the front to the back of the wing and stiffen the wing skin above the wheel.

In order for the wheel to go up close enough to the upper wing skin, this doubler and the sections of ribs 1 and 2 had to be removed. To stiffen the skin and return some structural stiffness to this area, I glassed the inside of the Proskin with carbon cloth here as well. The result is that the wheel can go all the way into the wing as required to be flush with the lower wing skin, and that area of the wing is still sufficiently stiff to maintain the structure.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2057754http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2057755http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2057757

Bob

The aileron and flap servos have to be installed before the bottom skin can be installed. Of course that involves building the ailerons and flaps themselves. As Gordon noted, building them on the Proskin sheeting is easy and they come out *very* stiff (so be sure to get them straight).

The flap servo is accessible from the wheel well and a hatch to access the aileron servo will be made in the bottom skin after it is installed. The aileron servo is buried in the wing so that only the aileron horn and a short section of the pushrod are outside the wing.

The flaps are hinged with the flat hinges supplied in the kit. The ailerons were hinged using Robart hinge points. I was uncomfortable with only two hinges on the aileron, as Gordon was, so I used three. I installed balsa blocks at the locations of the hinges.

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062339http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062340http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062341

The wing tubes are glued into the wings and the wings are attached/removed using bolts inside the fuselage. I was a bit uncomfortable with gluing the wing tubes in after the bottom skins are installed because I didn't see how to get sufficient glue between the tubes and the ribs - at least not without slopping way too much glue in there. At the same time, I was uncomfortable gluing the wing tubes into the wing without being able to mate them to the fuselage to insure that they were straight.

Because of this, I had to segway into installing the formers into the fuselage so that I could bolt the wing tubes into the fuse, and then install wings, align them, and glue them to the wing tubes...

Hey cool stuff. I really enjoyed seeing Gordon's Hunter fly, it is a beautiful aircraft. Looking forward to more progress!

Thanks Eddie, I'm looking forward to getting mine in the air!

So you could probably install the formers in a different order because of the openings for the removable nose, cockpit, and engine hatch, but I decided that the easiest would be to install the formers starting at the front of the fuselage working to the back.

The second and third formers from the front hold the mounting plates for the nose gear. I want to use the nose gear from the Ripmax ARF instead of the stock Mick Reeves nose gear - as I did for the main gear.

The problem is, the two different nose gear are radically different. The stock gear is really short and swings through around 135 degrees. The ARF gear is much longer and swings through just over 90 degrees...

Bob

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062635http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062636

Here you can see the stock gear over the plans in the extended and retracted positions...

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062637http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062638

and the ARF gear over the plans in the extended and retracted positions...

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062639http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062640

You can see that the ARF gear mounting can be raised up enough that the wheel is in the proper place (which actually needs to be 1/2" lower than the stock gear as the ARF main gear are 1/2" taller than the stock main gear). Unfortunately though, with that positioning of the retract unit for the ARF gear, the nose wheel sticks all the way up into the battery compartment in the removable nose cone when its retracted.

I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to fix this right now...

Bob

It looks like, from the picture that I found of the ARF nose gear mount, that in the ARF, the nose gear is mounted further back.


http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2062641


I think that Mick's original installation, farther forward, is more scale, but I'd much rather use the ARF gear and strut because its much beefier and easier to replace. Also, the ARF nose gear uses a much more positive steering mechanism than the "pull-pull" wires of the stock gear.

Perhaps I can shorten the ARF strut just a bit to move the nose gear further forward towards the scale location. I can't shorten it too much though, because if I do, the nose wheel won't go up far enough to go all the way inside the fuselage.

Right now, I'm going to setup the nose gear mount for the ARF strut length, get the formers in, and work out the final fix later...

Bob

Great to see this one coming together Bob!
btw, also just enjoyed reading your first Contrails article. I think your perspective and ideas for the JPO are spot on and realistic.
keep posting your progress!