Galaxy/Pegasus Hurricane

[GrumpyGnome]

Has anyone built or flown this kit?

 

https://www.pegasusmodels.co.uk/product.asp?prodid=994294

 

A club mate is just finishing one amd is interested in real-life flying experience of the kit.... he's asked F***b*** but I don't expect he'll get many sensible responses.

 

What weight did it end up at? 

What CofG did it end up at?

How did it fly?

 

TIA, GG

 

[GrumpyGnome]

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

Like all Hurricanes, a pain on the runway but if you can keep the spinner off the grass then once airborne it should be a delight to fly.  I can’t tell you the weight offhand but with air retracts (now electric) and a 90FS it is no lightweight although the builder (I bought it when it was already quite elderly at the Watford Swapmeet in 2003) had taken the trouble to fabricate a built up tailplane. It still has a large slug of lead in the nose though.

 

As far as I can recall, I went with the plan CofG.  

[Paul De Tourtoulon]

On 11/04/2024 at 07:22, GrumpyGnome said:

Has anyone built or flown this kit?

 

https://www.pegasusmodels.co.uk/product.asp?prodid=994294

 

A club mate is just finishing one amd is interested in real-life flying experience of the kit.... he's asked F***b*** but I don't expect he'll get many sensible responses.

 

What weight did it end up at? 

What CofG did it end up at?

How did it fly?

 

TIA, GG

 

Looks like a nice cheap kit to replace my fading Hurricane, but with Brixit,,,🤢

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

22 hours ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

Like all Hurricanes, a pain on the runway but if you can keep the spinner off the grass then once airborne it should be a delight to fly.  I can’t tell you the weight offhand but with air retracts (now electric) and a 90FS it is no lightweight although the builder (I bought it when it was already quite elderly at the Watford Swapmeet in 2003) had taken the trouble to fabricate a built up tailplane. It still has a large slug of lead in the nose though.

 

As far as I can recall, I went with the plan CofG.  

 

I've weighed it this morning and it comes out at a rather porky 9.62 lbs (or 4.36kg for Paul) without fuel.  I can't see any guidelines on the Galaxy site but it flies fine at this weight.

[GrumpyGnome]

Cheers Martin

[Jon H]

My warbirds Hurricane is 63 inch and about 9.5lbs. Very fast with a laser 80 fitted. Ground handling is no problem though, and its not for my bigger DB Hurricane either. 

 

As i have mentioned before, warbirds have a rep for being unstable so they are balanced nose heavy to guard against such behaviour. The irony is that the excessive nose weight demands large elevator throw to keep the nose out of the dirt when taxiing. This high rate is the actual cause of their instability in the first place and adding the nose weight just made it worse as you now need even more elevator travel. 

 

I will always advocate a more rearward c/g and smaller rates on elevator. 

 

I also for scale size wheels and, ideally, scale length legs as well to help with ground handling. Some warbird kits come with tiny little wheels and a single snail turd is enough to trip them up. 

 

 

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

I'm very tempted to follow this advice the next time I dig mine out...it will be interesting...hopefully not too interesting!  My FW190 has excellent ground handling (but it does have nice big wheels) so perhaps Black Horse followed this principle when they specified the CofG?

[payneib]

It's mine, I've just finished it tonight. Everything in, there's a slight nose down dip at the plan CoG. But she is chunky at 5.2kg/11.4lbs. Great big DLE20 at the pointy end, swinging a 15x7x3, has extended the nose by about 10-15mm with the stock firewall position, which means it's balanced with no nose weight. Lots of engine running in to do whilst I wait for short grass, a dry field and a perfect wind (and another clubmate to finish his Cambrian 109). 

[Jon H]

29 minutes ago, payneib said:

11.4lbs. Great big DLE20

 

yikes. 

[payneib]

4 minutes ago, Jon H said:

 

yikes. 

Throttle works both ways. 

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

And I thought mine was weighty!

[Eric Robson]

My much rebuilt/ modified Warbirds Hurricane comes out at 6.5 lb with a 4s 3600 battery,  as Jon's the c of g is further back, the 3" wheels manage our still uncut strip without nosing over. It flys very well though slightly under powdered it loop from level flight. 

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

The real thing needs a gentle dive to loop...

[Jon H]

10 hours ago, payneib said:

Throttle works both ways. 

 

Ah my 2nd favourite most stupid defence of excessive engine size. 

 

In any case, irrespective of the familiarity of the pilot with the throttle stick the model is over weight and over powered. This is rarely a good combination. 

 

 

[leccyflyer]

Beautiful job on the Hurricane Eric 😎

 

Like Spitfires, you can never have too many Hurricanes......

[leccyflyer]

I'm confused now - whose is the Hurricane sitting on the table with the checked tablecloth?

[GrumpyGnome]

It's the one referred to in the OP leccy... belongs to payneib

[payneib]

3 hours ago, Jon H said:

 

Ah my 2nd favourite most stupid defence of excessive engine size. 

 

In any case, irrespective of the familiarity of the pilot with the throttle stick the model is over weight and over powered. This is rarely a good combination. 

 

 

I'll just go bin the thing now then, thanks for your valuable input. 

[leccyflyer]

1 hour ago, GrumpyGnome said:

It's the one referred to in the OP leccy... belongs to payneib

That's what confused me GG - you'd both posted pictures of what looked like the same model. I was doing the "Find five differences between these pictures" thing.

[payneib]

She's a runner, and survived her first taxi across my terrible lawn without nosing over.

[Jon H]

4 hours ago, payneib said:

I'll just go bin the thing now then, thanks for your valuable input. 

 

Or you could accept that its a sub optimal result and take appropriate precautions. There is even the option to remove some stuff from the model to reduce its weight. 

[payneib]

11 minutes ago, Jon H said:

 

Or you could accept that its a sub optimal result and take appropriate precautions. There is even the option to remove some stuff from the model to reduce its weight. 

Have you ever built and flown this model? If not, move on. 

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

If she flies as well as she looks, you’ll have a ball.  I’m getting inspired to dig mine out - I haven’t flown it for a couple of years. 
 

Jon has enthusiastically espoused his recommendations for smaller elevator movements coupled with more rearward CofGs here for quite a while and probably didn’t realise you were new here. We do like to keep things friendly on the forum and I doubt that Jon’s frustration was aimed at you in particular. 

 

I am very tempted to remove some of my lead and put the theory to the test as mine has always been a handful on the ground and I’ve limited outings to summer conditions with hard ground and short grass. I do have fairly small wheels (2”) due to physical limitations which don’t help. What size are you using?

[Jon H]

why does it matter if i ever built one? I have a similar model from another manufacturer and countless other warbirds of varying sizes up to 90 inch. The tldr is that the model you have is a 60 inch and intended for 60 2strokes and 90 4 strokes, and a flying weight of about 9.5lbs. As yours is heavier than that you need to be prepared for it to not be as forgiving as you might hope. That was the point i was trying to make.

 

With that said, i decided to check the spec to see if my memory was not as accurate as i would like. Turns out the model is 66 inch and not 60 as i originally thought, and with that in mind the weight is not quite as much of a concern. Its still very over powered, but at least the prop has a fairly fine pitch. Just keep an eye on the rpm as the limiting speed for master 3 blades is a little low. 

 

11 minutes ago, Martin Harris - Moderator said:

I doubt that Jon’s frustration was aimed at you in particular. 

 

Not entirely, but after 18 years in the model industry i have had enough of smart alec comments and will be far less diplomatic when responding now i am just a modeller again.