Anyone remember the movie "Flight of the Phoenix". Well this is a sequel called build of the Phoenix. After having built a set of HH wings back in 04', hope to get back and finish this great plane. Got side tracked with 6-7 other planes. Actually what sorta stopped me was the fuselage. The short kit came with this great looking glass (even painted) fuselage. Now this is purely personal, I find it aggravating to try and cram things, 2' down a 1" opening, and then glue it. Sooo...have finally decided to make my own wood fuselage. Had been actively looking for some fuse plans that call for one the same size as HH. The light finally came on, and I decided to use the HH glass fuse as the pattern for a wooden one. Please don't tell me "that's backwards" I know, IT IS.


I keep having this song run through my little mind: "from the ashes of defeat grow the tulips of success"... Can't figure where I heard it, but it does seem appropriate. At any rate, have been walking around the house singing this stupid song!!

So before getting into the fuse, here's some photos of where I left off.


erich

Ok...to start this wood fuselage. Laid glass HH fuselage over a large piece of 1/8" lite ply. Then just traced around the glass fuse. Pretty clever huh. Only took me 3 years to come up with the idea. Traced everything except fin area. Will build that up with balsa and glue to lite ply sides. Made a slight modification at the canopy area. Cut out 2 ply sides, taped them together, planed and sanded till they were identical. Kept sides slightly bigger (except in length) then glass fuse.

erich

Can't wait to see this one finished...HH is one of my all-time favorite RES designs! Any thoughts as to how you're going to cover this one?

Hey Jon

Would like to use Solartex (a fabric). The stuff looks great, but am a thinking it's a little on the heavy side. Will most likely use Ultracote. Am leaning towards clear blue with white. One of the first HH done on the web was that color (was a photo of it, next to a pool), anyway it looked real good. But then again, saw one, all yellow which looked good too. Probably go with the white /blue theme. Had a problem with opaque yellow Ultracote, on the Sagitta XC (stuff curled up, after removing backing??) The yellow was the only color that had this problem.

Yes, have heard the HH, flys great, and I know it looks good. So can't wait to get it done.

erich

Added 1/8" lite ply in wing root area, on inside of fuselage. This, and some 1/4" thick, balsa filler, between fuselage halves, will allow me to carve the rounded shapes just above wing location. And of course will also, reinforce the wing joiner area. Hope am able to get all the gear in this, extremely slim (at least by wood construction standards) fuselage. Will most likely make fuse, just a hair wider and deeper +1/8" or so in width and about +3/16" in depth, length of course will be exactly same.

erich

Originally Posted by erich

Hey Jon

Would like to use Solartex (a fabric). The stuff looks great, but am a thinking it's a little on the heavy side.

If you would like to use a fabric but are afraid of the weight, go to this site:

http://ecom.citystar.com/hang-em-hig...op%20Polyester

Get the Polycarbonate Coated Ripstop Polyester. It comes in a wide range of colors, is very light and VERY puncture resistant. The flourescent colors are really bright. I've used this on the stab & rudder on two Condor open class ships and just recently covered on tip panel on my War Eagle with it. Its a great covering material. You use it just as it is, no additional sealing is needed. Since the covering material lacks adhesive, tho, you will need to use something like Sig Stix-It or BalsaLoc to provide an adhesive base but this is very easy to do and again, your weight build up will be very small. When I recovered my Condor flying stabs with this fabric, I had absolutely no weight gain over my original MicaFilm covering.

BTW, if you aren't going to use the fiberglass fuselage for your HH, would you consider selling it?

georgeg

Yes I would sell it. Checked the site, thanks. Didn't find any transparent stuff, do you know if carry any? Used micafilm on a hand launch (flipper) back in tbe dark ages. Still got some from that era as a matter of fact. Had to use balsarite as a glue. Seemed like good stuff. The up side to using a seperate glue is, you don't have glue on the film where it's not needed. Have no idea why I started using monokote, guess I just got used to applying it.

I may go with white Solartex (or your ripstop polyester) for the fuselage, and wing LE, but use transparent Ultracote on most of the open wing structure.

Send me a pm or email about the fuselage, I have the canopy too.

erich

Originally Posted by erich

georgeg

Yes I would sell it. Checked the site, thanks. Didn't find any transparent stuff, do you know if carry any? Used micafilm on a hand launch (flipper) back in tbe dark ages. Still got some from that era as a matter of fact. Had to use balsarite as a glue. Seemed like good stuff. The up side to using a seperate glue is, you don't have glue on the film where it's not needed. Have no idea why I started using monokote, guess I just got used to applying it.

I may go with white Solartex (or your ripstop polyester) for the fuselage, and wing LE, but use transparent Ultracote on most of the open wing structure.

Send me a pm or email about the fuselage, I have the canopy too.

erich

I'll pm you this evening about the fuse. Re: the fabric.... Is it as transparent as transparent monocote? No, not really but it is quite translucent. Light shines thru it very nicely. You can't see the details of your structure thru it but in the air, it looks like any transparent covering. When I first did the stab & rudder on my Condor, it was so bright in the sky, it looked like a flying neon sign. Almost painful to the eyes when close to directly up-sun. Now, with aging, the flourescence diminishes somewhat but it still shows up quite well in the sky. Plus the material is very puncture resistant if you land out in the weeds, not that we ever do that.

Now I gotta see this stuff. With this neon like covering I could have "the plane of the Baskervilles". Yea... a Sherlock Holmes fan. And I have NEVER EVER landed in the weeds. Wait a minute, think I have that backwards. It should be: I never land anywhere ELSE, but in the weeds. Hey it's better then pavement.

erich

Sorry to pop the baloon... so to speak... but why would you want to build a wood fuse with a good fiberglass one already there? Wish I'd seen this sooner... I'd kill for a good Hawk fuselage right now.

The Hawk's Daddy... Jack

Jack

No offense to your beautiful fuselage, but I explained my tiny minds thinking on this in the first post. But to re-iterate (see Ma, I do have a dictionery). I HATE WORKING WITH A PRE MADE GLASS FUSE. Pardon the english. However I DO enjoy the making of fuselages IN WOOD. Hope that wraps up my inconsequential (really using that dictioniry now) feelings on the subject. Sorry Jack have just sold that great looking fuselage. But if deal falls through, it's yours.

Wooden hawk fuse maker.....erich

Am reinforcing fuselage from nose to, wing alignment rod, area. Will use 1/64" ply on inside, glued on with a thin coating of 30 min epoxy. The fuselage being this long and narrow, and made out of lite ply, acts pretty much like a soggy noodle. Might have to add a 1/2" dia steel pipe down the middle to stiffen er up a bit. Give it some backbone.

erich

Cool... I was actually going to evetntally make one up myself... buy I'm gettin' lazier and lazier and... OK, you get the message. I'll be watchin'!

Jack

Looks like the deal is going to go through. Sorry. Guess you'll have to make one up. It just might be.. that making one outta wood is faster and less of a hassle then a glass one. You might even like it, try it (ok that's backwards).

Since your a watchin...I'll be doin my best (well... pretty close to it, anyway). Will be working on h. stab soon. From the drawings and some of the build threads, it looks as if the stabs taper front to rear (airfoil shape), but is constant in cross section, root to tip. Am I seeing that right?

erich

Glued 1/64" ply to lite ply fuse sides. Used 30 min epoxy, spread thin. Then weighted down with as much weight as would fit onto fuselage sides. Added lower longerons 1/8" x 1/4" spruce, using Titebond. Clamped every 2" (clothespins and steel clamps) to make sure of a good even bond. Sides are starting to firm up now.

erich