E-flite Hawker Hurricane chat

[Eifion Herbert]

I see on Horizon Hoby's site these have now been discontinued. Were they not good, or were they just outsold by the more glamourous Spitfires and P51s.

Seen many youtube videos of them and they all seem to fly nicely.

Anyway, a quick heads up, Kings Lynn are now doing these in a BNF special, which includes motor, ESC 6x servos. AR600 Rx and a flight battery for £159. At that price I couldn't resist. in fact I'm almost tempted to buy a second one just for the electronics and ebay the bare airframe, or keep it for spares.

I consider myself a reasonably competent pilot, always manage to get my wot 4 foam-e and my Parkzone SE5a back down in one piece and shiny side up, but I realise this is going against the usualy progression of a low-wing sports model before progressing to a scale warbird. Am I biting off more than I can chew here?

[The Wright Stuff]

Hi Eifion,

I'm in exactly the same position, got it from Kings Lynn, but haven't built it yet. I also have exactly the same reservations about flying it - been flying my Parkzone T-28 to get in some practice.

I intend to follow the tips laid out here, if you haven't already seen them.

Cheers,

TWS

[Bucksboy]

I haven't done any of that advice but it flies fine, it looks great in the air too.

[Danny Fenton]

Mine is pretty stock too, and flies fine

Cheers

Danny

[Eifion Herbert]

Just maidened mine, whoo, what a rush! Thought I'd share my thoughts from the perspective of someone new to flying low wingers.

Behaved a lot better on the ground than I'd come to expect. Having read up a bit about flying scale warbirds I was expecting a squirelly skittish thing that would ground loop if you so much as looked at it funny. In fact it was quite easy to keep her straight, and once in the air she was well a delight to fly. Smooth is how I can best describe it, control response was just really smooth and progressive, and she so looked the part climbing away with the wheels folding up. A couple of clicks of down trim and she was flying straight and level hands off at half power. So I gained some height to explore the stall. It will stall, it will drop a wing on you, if you really push it, getting it to do so required being off power and holding full up for an extended period, recovery was a matter of neutralising the controls and adding power.

While I was up high I thought I'd try the flaps. I'd set them as specified in the book, but having a DX6i have to do the little trick with a flap to flap mix to get three position flaps. The mid position flap slowed the plane a little, didn't seem to cause any trim changes as far as I could tell. I wasn't familiar enough with the DX6i layout yet to be sure of where the mix switch was in flight, so I couldn't activate it in flight to try the full flaps.

The flying itself compared to a Wot 4 is not all that different to be honest, it goes pretty much where it's pointed, and needs to be flown all the time. I imagine anyone happy and confident with a Wot 4 or similar high-wing aerobatic sports model would be fine with this Hurricane. The main challenge I found is that the picture is different, and can lead to orientation loss, especially with the model banking and viewed from the rear three quarter all of a sudden your brain makes it look like it's going the other way. You just have to keep telling yourself that you know which direction it's banking, keep the nose level with the elevator and just wait for it to continue a few degrees round the turn, at which point your brain will snap it back to the proper orientation. I suspect this effect will lessen with time as I get used to the new shape, maybe a few hours on Phoenix will help.

And so to landing, first one was way too hot, managed to use up all of our recently extended runway and then some. Luckily we have a large area of long soft grass in our runoff areas so no harm was done. Second landing attempt was better in length, but this model is bigger than I'm used to, consequently I was unconsciously flying it further away, so I came in again into the long grass, nicely parallel with the runway but a few meters beyond it. Third attempt was great, used the flaps in mid position - slowed her up a bit and managed a nice three pointer on the centre of the runway.

I'd set my timer to 6 minutes and had run that down plus a couple of positioning circuits before the final landing, and the smart guard said I still have 60% left, so I think flight times of 10 minutes could be reasonable with the supplied 3200 mAh

The only bit I'm not totally happy about are the retracts. I'd bought the e-flite units, and the pre-bent legs specifically for this model, but the right one just doesn't sit right. I've had to slice away a little foam at the front of the wheel well, to get it to go in, and now after a couple of landings I was retracting the wheels to put it in the car and again I found the right hand one binding on the front of the wheel well, and not sounding too healthy either. Hope I've not stripped them. Some adjustment necessary I think, but where I don't know, it just screws in with four bolts, nowhere I can see to adjust. I don't want to chop too much foam from it, but don't know where else to adjust.

Anyway, apart from the little niggle with the retracts I'm absolutely chuffed to bits. My first low wing plane, and first scale WW2 fighter, still in one piece after the maiden.

[NigelH]

If the E-Flite 10-15s in the PZ P-47 are anything to go by, you may well have room to adjust the retracts before you tighten the screws. The holes in your retracts may also be generous.

[Eifion Herbert]

Didn't seem to have much wiggle room on mine, the holes on the retracts match the ones on the plane pretty well, so where it screws down is where it goes. Might try drilling out the holes a little to give some adjustment rather than chop away at the foam.

[Eifion Herbert]

Thought I'd ruined my retracts but I think I've got away with it. Removed the unit from the plane and it wouldn't operate at all, made a hell of a noise, but no movement. I took it appart, had a look at the gears, couldn't see any damage so reset the positions of all the bits and put it back together. Held my breath and flicked the switch and luckily it now moves smoothly through the full 90 degrees. Phew! Drilled out the mounting holes on the unit giving me a little more adjustment on their position, and now they drop down and stow away reliably every time.

[Alwyn Gee]

Had a few flights with mine now and I am absolutely delighted with it. Yes the retracts are a bit of a pain, they seem to bend the oposite way to what you would expect. They tend to go foward, and like others have said bind on the foam at the front of the wheel well. This must be because I try to keep to three pointer landings to prevent the dreaded nose over and I suspect I am also putting pressure on the airframe when fitting the battery and as it is siiting on its wheels when I do this it tends to push them forward. I check that they are tucking away prior to each flight. Thumb on the plastic mounting and a push back on the leg seems to do the trick.

Excellent flyer and looks bigger in the sky than its physical size on the ground would imply.

Alwyn

[The Wright Stuff]

Just got mine together (finally) and about ready to maiden it. I'm currently held up by my inability to decide whether to install the clear or the coloured lenses (do they glue on or just clip on)?

I think that's called procrastination!

[Kelly]

Just put one of these together after sitting in my room for several years.list of faults flaws-
Wings have a bit of a gap in the join.
Switch for esc fell off the fusalage.
Gap between LE and fusalage.
Retracts nightmare doors fouling square gear covers fouling uc legs.gear doors stand proud of wing.
Both aileron hinges splitting only use to set up radio.
Strap for lipo poor.
Apart from those nigles very nice model.
I purchased a DX6e with a 610 rx. Impressed with this radio gears ease of use simples.having to use the bind plug is a bit of a bind being used to the simpler futaba.
Will post some pics soon.

[Kelly]

few pics.

[Former Member]

[This posting has been removed]

[Kelly]

stuck the dummy light lenses on since the photos,just push fitted the aerial mast for now. fly with it off see how many times i can put it on its back before fixing on.

[Simon Knight]

I have this model as second hand and love it, she flies beautifully despite my best efforts to cat 5 her on several occasions. I am on my third colour scheme now as a result and hope to keep her for quite a while. Spares are almost impossible to get now but fortunately I have a Fuse and main wing and gear struts just in case.

[Simon Knight]

New colour scheme that stands out even more now:

[Simon Knight]

New colour scheme that stands out even more now:

[Simon Knight]

New colour scheme that stands out even more now:

[dan h]

Hi simon.

Nice to see something different does it get much airtime? Think it needs a 3 blade prop!

[Simon Knight]

Thanks, she flew Wednesday but was a bit gusty. 2 blades works great 3 would like nicer 😉