Another PSS Foray

[FWAL]

A short while ago this Pegasus Hurricane MK1 kit was bought off this site's Ads. I was looking for another PSS project and was slowly being drawn towards the dark side and an EPP kit. The cost and durability being strong factors in the decision making. But alas I was saved when out of the blue this model came on the market and after two days of deliberating I made the phone call to seal the deal.

Having studied the form and the contents of the box I'm sure I've made the right decision. The only slight drawback is that there is no wing to fuse fairing supplied and perhaps the fuse is a little too box shape being slightly over 5" wide at the cockpit. I'm hoping it will be more scale in proportion once the 66" wings are attached.

The first mod will be the addition of flaps as with such a short nose there might be a fair amount of nose weight which will require slowing down at some point. I used the supplied hardware for the flaps and will introduce wing servo's for the ailerons.

first job besides the wing LE's and TE's is the fuse formers and fuse sides

The wing seat doublers and treblers were glued in place with contact adhesive as per the instructions.

 

Edited By FWAL on 26/12/2014 00:23:27

[FWAL]

I found enough time this afternoon to make a little mess! I thought I'd push on with the wings as I have another project which needs laminating so I plan to reinforce the wing joint at the same time.

Rebel is my own design RG65 RC racing yacht. She will be laminated in 200g/m2 3K carbon fibre.

The wings. First I cut the wing veneer and carefully peeled it off for future replacing.

Then I dust off my little Bosh and router out the servo aperture

Then using an old tent pole I cut into the end a couple of times with a junior hack saw to create 4 subtle teeth then drill from the wing root towards the servo aperture.

cutting the conduit for the servo cable

Bullseye! just in the sweet spot.

Then using the same technique I formed the flap servo recess.

Trim the roots and the wings are ready to be joined together

[FWAL]

Here are some recent photo's of the progress. This Pegasus kit is proving quite an easy build and to date there have only been two small niggles which needed a bit of extra work so to speak. The first was the geometry of the trailing edges didn't match up with each other when the roots were joined together. Additional sheeting on opposite surfaces and a fair bit of sanding was required to bring them symmetrical. The other was the EPP turtle decking matched the the fuse sides at the front and rear positions but was too narrow in the middle. In the end a decided to cut and glue the EPP to the required shape.

[Matt Jones]

I'm enjoying this, will it be coming to any of this years' PSS events??

[Tony Bennett]

i like the hurricane and yours is looking good sir.

[Monz]

The best part of this thread is that you're going to throw it off a hill! PTPSS! :P

Nice build too by the way!

And the Rebel? Details?

[FWAL]

Hi Monz

I feel sorry for the people who wouldn't and haven't thrown their handywork off a hill.

More details of a RG 65: **LINK**

And my 'South Gower Soaring-Sailing Blog' showing how I go about hand drawing the design and build method:

**LINK**

[FWAL]

I've made another small change to the wing LE. If I had gone with the kit I felt that the LE was going to be to blunt so I added another 2.5mm width strip of balsa just to give it a better profile. I have also introduced a ply plate to help reinforce the area around the wing locating dowel which will be fitted later.

I've also cut and fixed the upper deck longerons which certainly help give the model a real Hurricane feel

And now a view of the tradesman entrance! The plastic tube in the fire wall projects to and is glued to the front of the GRP cowl. This tube will be loaded with balancing lead and the battery pack. Then the receiver will be fitted to the ply plate on the left, The servo and switch apertures have also been formed. The switch will be able to be turned on/off from outside the fuse when completed.

And on to the tail. Sticking to the plan but I feel I will be doing some fettling in order to improve the aesthetics in this area. It's time to find some real pic's of how the tail blends into the fuse

As one can see at the moment the stab fixing looks like an after thought!

[Matt Jones]

Neat work

[Andy Meade]

Very nice Hope to see you at some of the PSS events so I can chase you with my Schwalbe!

[FWAL]

I'm fairly happy with the shaping, fairing at the tail. Only a very keen Hurricane addict would really notice that it's not strictly to scale, but lets be fair at the end of the day this is just a very good value for money kit and therefore isn't designed for the purist!

The under wing fairing is also coming along. Here I'm deliberating the best way to go about this challenge.

And here is a photo of a silly, stupid mistake!!!! In fact it's two mistakes really. They came about as I deviated from the original plan but that is no excuse. I decided a while ago to use the original aileron torque rods to power the additional flaps and then add a couple of wing servo's to power the ailerons. I hope that makes sense, in essence I've added flaps! However, when I designed and made the wing retaining nut bracket which slide in a groove to allow a little movement pending a bad arrival I only went and fixed it too close to the upper wing surface. This leaves only a very small gap for the flap control rods to pass through. I will probably be cutting some notches. The other mistake which is even more stupid is that I have aligned the wing retaining nut brackets with the top surface of the wing and not the bottom. What a plonker! Basically, I should cut the whole assembly out and start again. But I'm too stubborn for that and will make do and mend

It looked right when I glued it in place. The grooves in the ply take two small ply plates which the wing retaining nuts are fastened to. This should allow the wing to twist slightly on a harsh landing, so taking a little strain off the plastic bolts. You can just make out one plate in the top of the groove.

[Matt Jones]

Some neat building there, I'm genuinely excited to see this on the slope

[Andy Meade]

Ah, stubborn building - preaching to the choir here!

As Chris Williams is fond of saying "Perfection is the enemy of progress"

[FWAL]

Ditto.

Your Sea Vixen looks totally extreme in all senses of the word. Kudos.

Matt would you bother with brown paper on a build like this? I'm edging towards some scraps of solarfilm covered with brown paper for the upper deck but not sure about the rest of the fuse. My feeling is that I'm not going to go into too fine a detail regarding panels etc just want to take the grain away.

Thanks

Mark

[Matt Jones]

I've never tried brown paper but I've seen many people use it with great results. If it was me I'd be leaning towards silver solafilrm and airbrushed enamels.

[Mark Kettle 1]

FWAL nice build your doing watching with interest.

Andy - "Perfection is the enemy of progress" there's a gliding video with those words in. 

 

 

 

Edited By Mark Kettle 1 on 29/01/2015 13:31:57

[FWAL]

Today I tackled the top deck. This morning I sealed the longerons and perimeter edges with watered down PVA. Then this evening I made a paper template of the top deck and then used it to cut up an off cut of turquoise Oracover. Then ironed it on and to shrunk it down to leave the very distinctive Hurricane ribbed shape.

I then masked around the Oracover leaving a small 5-8mm margin for the fibre glass to adhere directly to the surrounding balsa. Then I sprayed the Oracover with a list mist of 3M spray mount and then carefully applied the 200g/m2 of woven fibre glass. Using the spray mount securely holds the FG in place whilst wetting out and has no adverse effects. Using spray mount also allows you to really work the resin in sparingly without any puckering up or excessive movement or floating FG. I swear by the stuff.

All wetted out and overall I'm very pleased with the result. Hopefully, this method of covering will prove robust enough for some slope abuse whilst still being in keeping with the original shape.

[FWAL]

Almost finished, just a couple of small jobs left to complete

[Phil Cooke]

Looks great FWAL - do I spy a split flap and aileron set up there??

What are the little hatches on the top surface of the wing?? Look forward to seeing this on the slope, I don't know why, but we don't see many Hurricanes at our events, so a welcome addition!!!

[FWAL]

Hi Phil. This Hurri has a three servo wing. The flap control is a little bit Heath Robinson and needs a little adjusting so the wing seats better towards the TE. But it appears to work just fine and I do enjoy flying with some snap flap in the mix. The hatches on wing are the servo aperture covers, the servo's are in place but I haven't got round to fitting the controls just yet. I'm away RC yacht racing in Falmouth this weekend so by this time next week we should be ready for some dogfighting!

[Andy Meade]

Looks just the part, well done that man!

Are you coming along to the PSS meet 13th/14th of this month on the Orme?

[Peter Garsden]

Looks great, and like Andy looking forward to seeing this at the Orme next weekend. Reminds me of my Red Arrows Hawk which was also a 1990's kit for 10cc power. Flies well but is really too large scale for gliding in the sense of wing root section etc and width of fuselage.

One question - why did you cover in Oracover then put flbreglass over the top. I have heard of silver Solarfilm then paint to show scratches but not this way.

[FWAL]

Hi Peter

Unfortunately, I wont be at the Orme but do plan on flying and making new friends at the Bwlch in Sept on the Saturday.

To answer your question I never envisaged using oil paints as I find acrylics a lot easier source and mix. In fact I mixed the colour for the underside with vinyl matt emulsion found in the garage and a little bit of green from the kids craft box. The brown was also home mixed with a water based primer undercoat and the kids dark brown. Although, the Green was mixed professionally. So in essence I wanted to keep the costs and mess down. Oracover/Solafilm and oil based paints would have proved a very expensive way of covering the complete model. Adding the F/G over a scrap of film gave a good textured finish, enabled me to keep the resin wetting out to a minimum and can be painted with a water based paint. Not forgetting it also more robust than film a lone so should last a bit longer!