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Colin’s Spanish Fury


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I bought an airbrush about 1988. Must get it out of the box and work out what I'm supposed to do with it!

supertigrefan, both the CR32 and CR42 are very interesting. There was a plan for the 32 in one of the mags a few years ago, it's probably still around. The 42 deserves more attention, it is a good match for the Gladiator and was in service right through the war. The Polikarpov I15 is the other extensively used WW2 biplane fighter, but probably a bit more difficult as a model I imagine.

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Hi Martin. As far as I know the only action the Iranian air force had in that time was against us in 1941 and I'm not sure the Furies got off the ground. Hungary used them but it looks as if they were all wiped out in the first attempt at action. Although there were only three of the Spanish planes they did see some proper air to air combat as I understand it and with the more powerful Hispano Suiza and other improvements it was probably a good match for the CR32 performance wise.

Edited By Colin Leighfield on 05/07/2018 08:28:58

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  • 3 weeks later...

I’ve just ordered the etched parts from Ernie, many thanks to him. I don’t think there’s any difference between the spinner on the Kestrel and Hispano Suiza planes so I will be after one of them. Also the difference on the engine cowling seems to be in detail rather than shape so I don’t see any problems there. I have to confess that all my building and flying has stalled recently because apart from being away for two weeks I have been enjoying my new Honda CB500X (smallest bike since 1964 and I can’t believe how good it is, I’m riding it to Orkney in September) and also my 1961 Norton 650 that I’ve owned since 1967. I had a twilight spin on that last night and it was worth it just to listen to it! Dreadful to be so torn between pleasures and interests that have been lifelong for me, must get my act together.

Edited By Colin Leighfield on 24/07/2018 10:07:20

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  • 1 month later...

Hi Ken and Chris. I confess that I’ve given no detailed thought to this, I’ve put all model activity on one side since May while I’ve been catching up with long overdue tasks on my old Norton, now hopefully complete.

If I had the engineering skills I’d have a go at making some sprung wheels to emulate the Dowtys on the original, Same as on a Gladiator. However I don’t so perhaps the idea that Chris refers to has some merit, I have used these in the Chipmunk undercarriage although that’s not yet ready to fly. Maybe I’ll try and draw up a different idea, within my limited capabilities. The weak point with the single leg will be the bending load at the point it attaches to the fuselage, it will need some thought.

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  • 1 month later...

After my motorcycling sabbatical and two weeks touring New England I cleared the shed today to make some working space and had my first look at the plan. Not an easy build, congratulations to those who have already begun. Tony B will have his finished next week by the look of things, don’t know how he does it. Martyn’s take on making the wings removable is probably the way to go, I don’t fancy carting one of these around all in one piece. 60” span isn’t huge but it’s actually quite a large model.

I think I can see a way to do the Spanish Fury’s undercarriage with Dowty spung wheels. I will have a go at drawing it up tomorrow and see what changes need to happen around F3. Otherwise the differences to the Mk1 and II are small. The cowling blisters are slightly longer and there is a small air intake under the nose, easy mods to the fibre glass cowl bought from Sarik. Ernie has done a wonderful job of the brass bits, it will take me a while to work out what does what, but they are certainly going to help.

It has occurred to me that it would be a good idea to put an engine into the Team Special biplane I found on EBay a couple of years ago and get some flying practice in with that. It is also 60” and quite large, so should be an ideal trainer for the Fury. My original from nearly 40 years ago that I finally wrecked about 15 years ago was a great flyer and it wil do me good to learn to fly it again. The first was painted to to look like a Fury and looked the part as well. A tribute to the late great Pat French.

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Hi Colin.

Nice have you on board again. Ernie put a pic of the parts description on the main thread.

My Spanish Fury Will have some sprung undercarriage, not the Dowty because I have not the tools for making it. I have researched models with similar landing gear and almost all of them have a wire undercarriage faired with balsa. I´m going to take some compromiso and do a "Stearman" style landing gear with/without scisors on the telecoping part.disguised with paint. I think no one Will know if they are correct or not.

José Luis

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Thank you Danny! I’ve spent some time working the plan out and made a modest start this evening with the fin. It looks as though the fitting for the bracing wire is the first opportunity to use one of Ernie’s Wonderful Widgets. Good stuff.

As I am back working this week the rest will be evenings only, but I should get a reasonable amount done. I have to be away again next week but after that I am clear for the rest of the year and can get on properly. I am going to stick as closely as I can to the plan and not repeat the mistakes I made bd525bda-3154-4c43-a4fb-67d905c8e8a5.jpegwith the Chipmunk and make an already tricky build even more difficult. The main complexity will be the undercarriage.

Edited By Colin Leighfield on 15/10/2018 21:58:55

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Forgot to mention that I did this the same way as Danny showed, in my hand and not flat on the plan. Also my favourite glue for this kind of work is good old fashioned balsa cement. It dries quickly, is not brittle like cyano and sands better. Also it is more than strong enough for gluing sheet balsa. My Tucano was mostly put together this way and airframe strength is certainly not an issue with that.

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I eventually got into the shed late this evening to find that I had messed up on the fin. Inexcusably I had used 1/4”x3/32” wood instead of 1/4”x3/16” so that instead of the fin being 7/16” thick it was only 1/4”! Ah well, so putting that right was tonight’s work. Not much progress but I can do a bit more tomorrow evening.355eb91c-f188-497b-b4a4-108977f1cb84.jpeg

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Well done Colin, did you add more wood to get the correct thickness or start again?

I think you are the first to tackle the brass parts, how did you bend them and have you soldered nuts to it as per plan? Lots of questions.

I left slots so that the brass and thread could be added at a later stage, in fact after one side was covered.

I felt having the brass bits would get in the way when sanding and covering??

Cheers

Danny

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Thank you Danny. I couldn't face remaking it so added the extra wood thickness to correct, again using balsa cement which doesn't add much weight. I will sand it carefully to profile and check what it weighs later, but I'm not going to worry about it. I don't have any concern about sanding or covering with the brass fitting in place. The covering will be adhered to the wood that surrounds the fitting and I'd rather do it that way than cut the covering and fit it later. I didn't see the need to solder anything because there are no turning loads, simply equally balanced tension from both sides. I tightened the nuts and locked the threads with superglue. They won't move. Also I superglued the bolt into the wood top and bottom, no concerns there.

Hopefully I can finish the rudder tonight, I'd like to make some progress on the tailplane as well before I have to disappear again for another week, "hope" being the critical word, as always!

Cheers,

Colin.

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  • 2 weeks later...

b183d346-255b-45a3-ac4a-fe63e794a292.jpegWe got home on Saturday after a great and very interesting week in Croatia, also visited Bosnia. Croatia has come a long way since last there in 2002, Bosnia much less so. There are some busy work commitments through the next ten days but I can get some evenings in. Re-started tonight and made the rudder. Next step is the tailplane and elevators to try and complete tomorrow night.

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Only managed a little time on this today, now working on the tailplane. Very slow so far, should have more time as the weekend acc217ee-7e7b-474d-9106-5f1421d6f2f4.jpegapproaches. I will start on the fuselage next, before the wings. I want to resolve the undercarriage issue for the Spanish version and I have an idea how to do that, whether it will work remains to be seeen,

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Losing three weeks in October has put me miles behind and I’m going to be away again for part of this week. However trying to marry up the plan with three views as part of the process of working out the Dowty type u/c makes me realise that Dennis had moved it forward from the scale position. I’m wondering whether to do the same or to make it accurate. Someone else might have picked this up, if so I apologise for not seeing that in the other threads.

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Finally managed to get back in the shed for a couple of hours tonight, painfully slow working on the elevators. I am not going to 589cee2c-f24c-47cb-adae-29765563d2c3.jpegsand anything to profile at this stage, I just want to get them made and get onto the fuselage. It’s a bit demoralising being so far behind everyone else, it’s definitely me that is the plodder and not Tony B! Four long working days again next week but then pressure is off and I will have a better chance with this.

Working out the details for the cantilever undercarriage lead me to decide that the Dubro vintage wheels 110mm/4 3/8” are the best for this as was suggested earlier. The spokes are very lightly presented and easy to sand off or cover and in every sense they are close to the original Dowtys. Also the tyres are good quality and have good shock absorption. In truth to be exact scale they should be 120mm but I think this is close enough. In Dick van Mourik’s build he rejected these for weight and chose 4” wheels, but to me they are definitely too small and make the whole model look out of proportion. I might cut holes in these to lighten them and use light covers for scale effect.

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