the unmagnificent man

Daniel, I'm not a big Alonso fan but "if" Alonso wins this year it won't be the car it'll be the Superb driving Alonso has done with his not as good as usual Ferrari.

Wow some great and some interesting comments here. Good to see what and how people think. Pete B if I hadn't had read all this thread first I would have probably almost word for word what you wrote. Ben B, wow man although I strongly agree with a few of the things you wrote you have to agree that some of the others are quite far fetched, even to me a top believer in various conspiracies find the comments a bit on the imaginative side, but each to his own. If the FIA tested the front wing whilst off the car wouldn't it be easier to just make the bit it attaches to a little more flexible? After all, with all the air flowing over the wing and cooling it, it would have to be heated to some mighty heat to flex, and then who is to say it wouldn't just melt and deform with all the load. I love your thinking out of the box way, its people like you that stumble on great ideas, keep it up. Does anyone else do the Fantasy formula 1 and if so how well are you doing or have you done in the past?

Thanks to you both for taking the time to explain. I learned a bit and now understand a little more. Thanks. UMM

Thanks for that Steve, now I understand why on one of my batteries the charge was set to 0.5amps but after a while it dropped and then went back up again. Lets hope now that its enough to power my power panel and turn my starter. UMM

Hi all. I have a 12v gel battery. it is a 7.2 ah (7200mh) I have a multi function charger. I checks the type of battery so I can't accidently put the wrong type of charge in. ie nicad, Lipo, Nimh and lead acid (gel) I can choose that it switches off after a chosen number of munutes, I can choose the amount of charge from 0.1amp to 5.0amps I can also choose the cut off cut off voltage, and the cut off mah (ie cut off at 2200mah) To be honest its far to complicated for me as I don't know the best amount of charge to put in it. So here are my questions 1. What is a good charge to put into a 7.2ah 12v gel battery? (from 0.1 to 5.0amps) 2. Can you charge these batteries before they are flat or is it best to wait until signs of low power? 3. Even though its a 12v do I set my charger to cut off at 12v or is it like a car 12v battery that charges up to about 13 or 14v? 4 given that I can cut off at 7200mah, what if the battery is approximately half charged do I still try for the 7200 or somewhere about 4000mah? I won this charger so please dont ask why I didn't buy a simple one, I'm sure this charger would be the bees knees in the hands of the right person. I prefer mechanical problems as I can work those out. Answers in laymans terms please as even some of the above is only there as I copied it from the battery. Thanks. UMM

It runs on an old computer from in the cupboard so problem solved but thanks anyway guys. I'll probably try that old program compatability link option when the other half tells me she doesn't like all the computers "hanging about the place" but until then......

And another that shows it from a little further away, well I suppose thats obvious by actually looking at the photo, but if it wasn't obvious then perhaps your eyes aren't quite what they should be in which case trying to watch a small aircraft youve just spent a small fortune on disappear into the sky may not be the hobby for you!

Ah, a photo thats less boring for people who just want to see what it looks like

You can see I've already painted the brown and it hides nicely. Its now ready for the green and then a few panel lines. Heres the other side already painted On this photo you can see the original position of the flap servo, unfortunately when the wire was attached to the two direction changers it ran exactly over the centre of the servo and didn't allow for the control arm. But thats irrelevant now anyway.

OK, we all prefer photos to words in a build blog, Don't we? So here we are... I joined the wings up at last, there was a bit of a deep line so once again, filler

To be honest I'm not quite sure what the problem was but the solution was to use two servos with a "Y" lead. Actually I'm 99% certain that the problem was that the 90 degree horns placed in the wing were attached to plywood plates but there was a small amount of play. if you didn't make it tight then one or the other of the flaps was always slightly loose. And of course if you did make it tight... Bzzzzzzz It didn't help that the hinges attaching the flaps were not all at quite the same level and given that there are two flaps per side that come together slightly as they lower due to being at a slight angle to eachother it was inevitable really. New hinges where needed and a servo on each side instead of a push pull 90 degree direction change. Anyway its right now and thats all that matters to my state of mind. Up no buzzing, down, no buzzing, next......

Hooray finaly found a solution to my buzzing servo problem.......... Photos soon. UM

Looking good Simon, I'm building one of these at the moment and found it to be a well built ARTF. Just a few minor tweeks to correct small errors in the manual but nothing too drastic. Biggest problem was with flap servo buzzing but I seem to have found a solution for that today. (at last) Photos of the before and after to follow soon on the VQ Hurricane thread. I painted mine too as the look of the plane in the black and tan didn't do it justice. Look forward to seeing it finished. UM

Thanks for the info Ian i'll check out the demo. I don't really want another transmitter so I'll just see if someone is selling a disc and buy the cables to connect it to my Futaba radio. Wow the download is really slow...........

Hi Erfolg I have exactly the same problem did you ever get to the bottom of it?

Hi all, I read the first couple of posts and the last couple so maybe this has been answered already but is this an online sim and can you use your real radio, Or can I use the reality craft radio (if I can find it) or would I have to buy a simulator package first? I like the idea of a spitfire squadron flypast...... UM

Well been busy at work busy with the house and managed to do about an hour each day on my Hurricane so after about a week you would imagine that a lot has been done....... NO. I managed to join the wings and then filled the gaps where they joined and smoothed them down then got started on the flap servo The VQ people got it slightly wrong with the flap servo position, nothing that can't be easily sorted. They positioned it exactly central of the push pull wire. Sounds great I hear some people think but when you add the servo arm the push pull wire needs to be about 1cm to the right or left. But I tried to fit it bzzzzzzzz I re adjusted it bzzzzzzzz I turned it round bzzzzzzzz I changed the servo bzzzzzzz I picked up my hammer, mmmmm its stopped, put the hammer back bzzzzzzz. I removed the mechanism and checked all the fittings for binding and free movement. I re positioned the servo in a new location bzzzzzzzz. I removed all the linkages and tried with two micro servos, not really strong enough and even worse BZZZZZZZZ. I went back to the original central servo with a push pull and double checked all the end point settings. I think that somehow the split flaps on one side must not quite seat correctly (even though they don't seem so bad) Anyway about 5 to 7 hours has dissappeared into what felt like 5 minutes and i'm no further on, what did I say at the beginning "it could have flown out of the box" It nearly flew yesterday on the end of my boot...bzzzzzzz oops, sorry, habit! I'll get it sorted even if it means removing and re seating the flaps. More photos over the weekend, weather permitting all assembled UM

Hi Tony, If I recall didn't you build four at once?

Mmmmm, doesn't look so different on my photos but in fact it makes a massive difference on the plane. So far building my VQ Hurricane I have had no reason to complain as its all been very good. There have been a couple of tiny niggles but not worth complaining about. One of these is the fact that although the servo mounting blocks have been pre fitted and are almost the perfect size for a servo to drop right in, unfortunately they haven't taken into consideration the rubber mounts on the servo and when you add these the servo arm is thrown out of centre of the slots in the cover and they rub slightly. So I removed the mounting blocks and re glued them with the servo, rubbers and screws all in place. perfect now and only took 5 mins. I also noticed something a bit strange with my Futaba servo mounting screws, They dont fit through the brass top hat fixings supplied with the servos. Luckily I have boxes of spare screws and used some of those to fix the servo in position. I then used the Futaba screws to mount the covers in place of the Japanese screws. So just some internal bits to fit into the wings and they can be glued together. then its photo shoot time. All the rest is just radio gear and that doesn't change the appearance. (unless its bad radio gear and that can change the appearance of an aircraft massively) ooooh hope not! more soon....... UM

Hooray my servos have arrived I can now carry on at last. I noticed that the aileron servo covers are very flat and that they don't follow the wing shape so I added a little balsa sheet to each one and sanded them to the same profile. The flat servo cover (with J I Standard screws ) I then added balsa sheet and sanded the sheet to the same profile as the wing cut the slot and painted it A finished cover looks like this (with proper philips screws)

Hi all, I know that this is an old thread but I have a new addition. I recently ordered a VQ Hurricane from Hobbystores via the internet as someone pointed out to me that they were the cheapest for the model I wanted. Postage was free to the UK but living in France they wanted £25, not bad when you consider the model was around £40 cheaper than the most expensive place. After ordering the model I received it within days. I have to add at this point that the item was shown as in stock. The next time I looked at my bank statement I noticed that I had been charged twice for the plane and once for postage on the Thursday, the price of the second plane was refunded the same day but two days later another postage was taken out of my account. I rang the shop and spoke to someone who said that this sort of thing couldn't happen. I explained that it had. he then said that sometimes when you are abroad two payments are shown to come out as one of them is a "pending" payment. I asked him why he had refunded me if it was pending. He then said that he couldn't do anything and that I should scan my statement and email it to him and he would forward it to the I.T. department. I did as he said and he emailed me almost immediately to say he had sent the scanned statement to them and they would deal with it. I waited about 10 days and then emailed to say I'd heard nothing from the Admin I.T dept. He replied almost right away saying it was paid the day i sent the email. mmmm In brief, you can trust them. They supply a good and quick service if the items are in stock, they are quick to email you to let you know whats going to happen. A little email to say that they had refunded me or a sorry would have been nice but hey I got the money back and I will order from them again because even though there was a little mix up it all got sorted out.

Hi paul where abouts in the loire valley is this place as thats where i live (ok I know its massive) but that place looks great and if its not to far I might pay a visit one day!

Wow, looks great so far. I love the seat its the sort of thing I like to do, just add a bit to give it that little more realism without going OTT. Fantastic. Look forward to seeing the rest of this thread.

Only enough time to add a little exhaust trails tonight but once my servos arrive I'll crack on. Look at that hes not even off the production line yet and he's already got a Messerschmitt bf 109 in his sights....... Thats my boy.

I added a little balsa to the tailwheel as I think it looked a little bit to wire like and seeing as I did the mainwheel doors I thought I'd treat the tailwheel as well. Its a little dusty on this pic but that'll disappear.