Hawker Hunter

It's been a bit quiet round here hasn't it, so I thought I would hopefully encourage other projects to creep out of the woodwork by posting whats being knocked up in the Edwards Batcave.

Having been to a couple of cracking PSSA meetings, and had a good look through the archives, I noticed a distinct lack of Hawker Hunters. A classic British jet, with loads of examples, but not at all popular on the slope. Flair made a tiddler Hunter kit a few decades ago, but apart from that, they're pretty thin on the ground. So, to make the poor old Hunter feel a bit less left out, I thought I'd give one a go.

So far, I've deliberately gone for pretty simple PSS designs because they matched my skill level, and had a pretty good chance of success. I wanted something a little more ambitious this time though, just to stretch myself a bit.

I've come to the conclusion that scratch building is jolly good fun. The end results (well mine anyway) don't come out anywhere near as good as professionally designed stuff or ARTF's, but the satisfaction of looking at your own slightly wonky creation full of filler beats any ARTF every time !

So, here we go. Starting point is some decent reference books nicked from a mate, a 1/32 scale Revell Kit, a Vernier Caliper, a Brickies geometry set from Wickes and a roll of cheap B&Q Wallpaper. Oh, and half a balsa plantation.

Brilliant stuff Scott - and stop putting your skill level down - youve done some great work from what Ive seen at the meets

The first decision is size. I've recently come to the following conclusions on categorizing model size:

Small: fits in the car in one lump.

Medium: Fits in the car behind the seats in multiple lumps.

Large: Fits in the car with its nose between the front seats butted up to the gear lever !

Using this algorithm I elected for a sensible 'medium', which works out at 1/8. This gives an overall length of about 1.75m which lets me fit it in the car and still be able to change gear. This scale is also conveniently 4 times the size of my 1/32 Revell kit making calculations nice and simple.

Construction was going to be all balsa, cos I likes balsa I does, Planked fuselage built 'Easter Egg' style, and for no specific reason, I built the fuselage split horizontally instead of vertically contrary to convention, This actually made lining things up much easier though.

The fuselage is tubular for most of it's length, and then evenly tapered front and rear, so nothing tricky there. For the tail section I went for SD8020. With hindsight, this section is way too thick for scale, so I should have thinned it quite a bit, but heck, I can live with the shame.

Trying to get the canopy shape vaguely right was a sod. I did it 'Matt Jones' style by building it on a fiberglass mould of the fuselage. I failed to allow for the height of the fibreglass mould though, so it's a bit higher than scale, but please see me previous reference to personal shame. I wasn't going to make another one

The Plug went off to our man Steve at Vortex Vacforms (what would we do without him!) who for an embarrassingly small charge made me two gorgeous canopies from it (one as a spare/cockup!)

Looking forward to this Scott, have always appreciated the look of the Hunter.  

Cheers

Ade

Edited By Flyer on 31/10/2016 15:34:13

Scott, before you get too carried away, What sort of span are you looking at? Might be handy if you could make it a suitable size for a P60 Turbine. (So I can nick the plan off you later. Say 1.7 meters?

Well I cocked that up. Should have read on a bit.

Wings next. As I'm hoping to fly this on my local girls blouse of a slope as well as the Orme, I thought I would accidentally stretch the wing area une peau. The scale span is 1.25m, so a sneaky 10% all round gives me 1.37m span, that's about 54 inches if you're still a Victorian. I had already stretched the tail area by 5% so hopefully it will still look reasonably in proportion.

I turned to my old mate, the King of Compufoil, Andy Blackburn to knock me up some rib templates because I'm way too tight ar5ed to pay for it myself. He recommended Eppler 180 as the section of choice for a swept PSS wing and printed me off a spot on set of ribs. As you know Andy is Captain Scale. The only thing in his house that isn't pure scale is his kettle. I had already decided not to incorporate the 'sawtooth' leading edge because this was a) too difficult to build and b) could have unexpected flying characteristics. This news resulted in Andy putting his head in his hands and weeping, but he's used to me by now, so we'll get over it.

The other issue was the anhedral. I wanted to keep this, but was a little restricted by the 12mm wing tube. Scale anhedral would have meant I could only protrude the wing tube about 150mm into the wing before it came out of the top skin, I therefore went for a bit less anhedral, and a longer joiner. Life is a compromise !

I put the lids on the wings, incorporating a blob or two of washout. Next up were the intakes and wing fairings. These were a right bar steward. I moulded a sheet of balsa around the fuselage, and then built the wing fairings against this mould so the wing and its fairing is in one piece. The theory being that the wing and fairing fits perfectly up against the fuselage. Well, it does, sort of, ish, but is far from perfect. With hindsight I should have built the fairings on the fuselage and had stub wings. The join between the intakes and fuselage is going to take a fair bit of Michael Jackson** to look acceptable, but it's all experience.

**Michael Jackson: Filler, Filler, through the night ...

And this is where it is now ! Pretty much ready to fill the multiple dings and start covering. Tissue and varnish because I'm a cheapskate.

The weight so far is 1740g, that's 3lb 14oz in Caveman. I'm hoping for a final weight of well under 3Kg, but noseweight with these things is usually an unpleasant surprise !

Really nice Scott - she looks the biz!

Very nice Scott! You've made a super job of that - what a beauty! She'll be great at this scale I'm convinced - don't worry yourself too much about the AUW I think you'll find the loading is needed to get this grooving nicely on the big slopes!

Have you decided on a scheme? Do tell me to 'go away' if its top secret!

hahaha no secrets round here Phil It's got to be camo. Camo is sexy, everybody knows camo is sexy. Dark Green and Dark Sea Grey with a Light Aircraft Grey botty.

I've had a go with all sorts of paints, Flair Spectrum, Humbrol Enamels & Acrylics, Car Spraycans and Specialist Spraycans, and I'm now a complete convert to WarbirdColours from Fighteraces. It's lovely thick gloopy stuff which goes on beautifully, it's incredibly forgiving, tough as old boots and has a lovely satin finish. I have to spray it though, as I have the brushing skills of a 6 year old. Below is a recent pic I took of the two Hunters together at the City of Norwich Aviation Museum. Both very different shades of Green & Grey, even though Hunters were only ever supposedly painted in the same colours ! Of the two, I much prefer the darker one in the foreground, so will be aiming for that

Edited By Scott Edwards 2 on 31/10/2016 17:41:54

Scott - the Hunter looks great - will look fantastic in the camouflage finish.

It does look spot-on - you've managed to capture the essentials of a Hunter.

> This news resulted in Andy putting his head in his hands and weeping

In fairness, I only actually put my head in my hands when you said you were going to paint it bright green and extra dark sea grey because you "liked the colours"...

Hi Scott,

You have done a great job, looks fantastic and so much more rewarding for you to designed and built it yourself

I've got a pair of Cambrian Hunters there about the same size as yours, in the attic one still in it's box and the other built with a 0.46 up front, just too scared to try to fly it.

I too went for the camo colour scheme.

Keep up the excellent work

Regards

Robert

Having seen Steve McLarens Tornado, and particularly how spiffing it looks flying with drop tanks and full ordnance, I had to have a go 1/8 scale 100 Gallon Drop tanks are 430mm long, and 70mm diameter, so too big for solid balsa. I thought of making them like mini planked fuselages, but Steve made his from foam. I've made dummy spinners from foam, but that's about is. So ... here's my anatomy of a pair of drop tanks made Steve style !

I think they look jolly nice

Ah!!! THat is nice. I do love the Hunter, the most beautiful of all jets.

Of course it MUST be camouflaged. I have seen one very expensive one that looked like...The moderators would not allow me to describe it. Let's just say I have seen similar colour schemes on the pavement outside takaway shops.

WOW ! Scott, WOW !