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K3731 Martians Fury 1


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This is the Fury I,m going to attempt to emulate it is the worlds only flying Fury based at Duxford

some history

Hawker Fury 1

Some of the handsomest biplanes ever built were British and U.S. end-of-an-era fighters of the 1930s. Gloster Gladiators, Curtiss P-6E Hawks, Bristol Bull­dogs, Boeing P-12/F4Bs, the fat-bellied Grum­man F3F…but the handsomest of all was the shiny, sharp-nosed Hawker Fury, an open-cockpit biplane that pushed the struts-and-fabric limits hard enough to become the RAF’s first airplane able to exceed 200 mph (207 was its top speed) in level flight. Not many were made—a total of 263 Mk. Is and IIs—and only one has survived. Gerald Yagen’s Military Avia­tion Museum, in Virginia Beach, Va., has a Fury replica that last flew in 2003, but the world’s only real Fury biplane proudly took to the air in Britain last July after a painstaking restoration that probably should be called a reconstruction.

The Fury is owned by the Historic Aircraft Collection, which displays most of its airplanes, including the Fury, at the Im­perial War Museum in Cambridgeshire. HAC’s sister company, Retrotec, did the rebuild. Much of the manufacturing of the Furies (and other interwar Hawker biplanes such as the Demon and Hind) was accomplished with archaic devices that no longer exist, so Retrotec had to build not only a biplane but some of the machine tools that originally created it. Much of the metal in the donor Fury’s fuselage, scrapped in South Africa in the early 1940s, had terminally corroded and needed to be remanufactured. Unlike typical steel-tube airplanes, the Fury’s tubes were not welded but mechanically fastened through squared tubing ends and complex joining plates (facilitating maintenance and repair in remote corners of the British empire, where welding torches were rare).

Like the original Furies, Retrotec’s restoration is powered by a rare 700-hp Rolls-Royce Kestrel V12, a progenitor of the Merlin. As a bomber interceptor, the Fury was light and efficient enough that its nearly 2,400-feet-per-minute climb could put it at 20,000 feet just 7½ miles from its takeoff point.

The Fury was truly a transitional airplane. Some of its construction derives from the Sopwith fighters of WWI, yet it was also the direct predecessor of the WWII Hawker Hurricane. The Hurricane had a fuselage that was essentially a Fury’s with an enclosed cockpit, though its wing, retractable gear and Merlin engine were all new. While export Furies served with the Iranian air force until 1949, its last combat mission apparently occurred in April 1941, when a squadron of Yugo­slav Furies intercepted incoming Messerschmitt Me-109s and -110s. Eleven Furies were quickly massacred; the only Fury victory was scored by a pilot who rammed an Me-110.

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  • 4 months later...

Well I did start on the first of October and have taken pics , there isn't much to add that other Fury builders have already said the only thing I had with the parts cut by Dylan are the fuselage parts were cut in 1/8th balsa not 3/16th so I made new ones. So here are the pics up to date not in any particular order by the way ignore the date stamp on the pics battery went on the camera I couldn't be bothered to set it

The bits

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Meanwhile in the corner

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Hello there The Fury moves on by doing a bit everyday and while the glues dries I print planes .

anyway here are some pics showing progress

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below this weird lump will become the tail skid ,it will be psrung

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The I must put it together so far shot

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Fin and rudder with wire support in placedscf8052.jpg

Tailplane with wire support in place

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Tail skid assembly all done and fitted will fully compress with 400 gms weight

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My latest little home hack tool electric toothbrush sander for small areas dscf8056.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hello chums,

I made the decision to keep working on the fuselage as far as possible then I can get it out the way to crack on with the wings so progress up to date. I,m using the miss fitting cowl and spinner but I have built up the cowl to blend into the spinner using bumper filler and plastic model filler still needs a bit of work and it has been sprayed with rustoleum chrome , I am inclined to permanently fix the cowl in place

bye for now

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  • 2 weeks later...

Progress has been slow but I have made some such as a little bit at the tail end ,servos fitted and batt compartment made . i have also been constructing the UC assembly which is a real pig a jig is needed well i needed one then the whole thing adjusted and tack soldered the aligned again due to the thickness of the wire it takes a lot of heat so i acquired a 200 watt iron having first tried a mapp gas torch but the leaves combustion residue and overheats the flux then you have dismantle and clean up and try again, Anyway warts an all pics below

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