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As
many readers will know Terry won the PSSA Southern Area Trophy
earlier this year with his FJ-4B Fury. Prior to
retirement Terry was a pilot with Malaysian Airlines flying
the Boeing 737-400. He tells me that the full size 737
also glides well and in fact top of descent is generally 120
miles from destination, all done at idle power! I now
leave him to describe his design and building technique.
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Terry
holds aloft his magnificent N.A. FJ-4B "Fury"
at Llandudno, on the Great Orme in sunny conditions.
The
model in the foreground is also a design by Terry, the
Sea Hawk. |
The
Choice
One
of the joys of PSS for me is selecting the subject aircraft
and this year was no exception.
My
choice of a 50's jet was perhaps inevitable since from a very
early age I had been fascinated by KK flying scale and had
built the whole range as fast as my paper round income
allowed.
One
of my favourites then was the Sabre and I stumbled upon it
again whilst looking for inspiration. It has however,
been done to death as a model, there are many plans available
now so I looked more closely at its cousin the Fury which,
although having a larger and deeper fuselage,
has
a bigger wing, perfect for light
wind
days. Thus the decision was
made.
The
Inspiration
As
an ATC cadet I often helped out as general dogsbody at local
flying shows and one of the delights was a visit to the model
display tent. The build standard of the scale entries
was breathtaking and it enthused me such that I promised
myself that one day I would try to build equally as well.
It
shaped my thinking and even now the example set by those
modellers inspires me, so much so that the first task I set
myself always is to acquire plenty of scale information.
The
Aviation Model Shop at West Drayton is first class as is
Midlands Counties Publications in Hinkley, Leicester.
Between them they provided a very complete scale book and a
1/72 scale plastic kit of the Fury from which my local
printing shop produced 1/9th scale drawings.
The
Build
The
Fuselage
Now,
I don't like planking it has to be said but it has its
advantages over time consuming mould making/clouds of dust and
pools of molten foam/solvent mix. So I have standardised
on this method now. During the early stages I take a
large building board and all the raw materials to the living
room where the tedium of white gluing and pinning is
alleviated
by
being able to have a social contact with my family. I
think they quite like to see me out of the workshop as well
for the few weeks it takes to complete the relatively
mess-free process.
The
Fury was built in two identical halves. 1 /4" by 1
/8" spruce strip formed a crutch running the complete
length of the fuselage and a 1 /8" sheet balsa keel beam
was inset to support the area that later was removed to form
the wing cutout. 3/16" balsa formers cut to the
accurate fuselage section were attached and planking commenced
using 3/32" balsa strip. When each half had been
removed from the plan I reinforced the innards from the nose
to behind the wing cutout with glass fibre tissue/epoxy resin
as much as my landings dictated! They were then joined
using white glue, taken to the garden and rubbed.
The
monocoque fuselage was complete and it weighed hardly
anything. I was now able to delight in removing
sections for the cockpit, the tailplane seat and wing cutout
using paper templates to get the shape, angles and size
correct.
The
photos show the build up of the sliding canopy using
1/32" and 1/64" ply and block balsa. The
fuselage spine was simply a light balsa outline on which
rolled sheet and block balsa was glued to get the final shape.
The
Wings
I
prefer built up wings but decided that for this model
foam/obechi might be more appropriate because of the thin wing
section. The build time was very short using light glass
bandage to join the two wing halves. The slotted flap
mechanism and the
Frise
ailerons were reproduced using recessed hinges. This
allowed me to hide the linkages within the wing and control
surface shrouds, using snakes and idler bellcranks for the
ailerons and torque tubes to the flaps. (The photos of
the wing show method number one where I linked the ailerons by
torque tubes. This was not successful because of
excessive lost motion).
At
this time I decided to inset a square inch of balsa into the
lower surface of the wing to support plug in landing gear.
After viewing the photos of the aircraft looking so realistic
on its dummy undercarriage I'm pleased I did. It took
only two evenings using scrap balsa and dowel to make them but
it transformed the static model. I first used the idea
on my Me 163's built over the past two years. It seemed
so right for them since the original had the drop off landing
gear, but in addition I found it very convenient for
displaying them so I have continued to use scale landing gear.
The
Empennage
The
fin, rudder and tailplane are very simple. They were
constructed from a 1/16" balsa plan outline on which the
sections were glued, and then covered with 1/16"
sheet. I installed a tailplane incidence adjuster using
a screwthread mechanism accessible from the fin when the
rudder is fully deflected. This however proved not to be
needed. All linkages are internal and the
elevator/stabiliser control horns can be reached through the
jet pipe.
Finishing
Given
that I can get a photo quality copy of the instrument panel
for a few pence these days I like to include a bit of detail
up front. The seat and trimmings weigh very little and
generally are situated where I would often be adding a little
nose weight to get the CG correct. The canopy was cut
from a damaged 1:9th scale F-16 canopy which when reversed had
the exact profile required.
My
favourite covering method over the years has always been doped
nylon. However it seems that I am the only person in my
house that likes the smell! For this reason I have
persevered with iron on film on top of Balsaloc. I am
getting some good results now using Solarspan lightly abraded
before spraying. It does tend to bubble in strong
sunlight however, but I got a good tip from Steve Buckley at
the Mendips meet this year and that is to shrink it twice
(i.e. run the iron over it twice) before applying any
paint. I shall try that this year.
Matt
Humbrol enamels cover well and the range of scale colours is
so good that I use both the small pots and the sprays
mostly. All decals were cut from Solartrim and painted
as necessary. The panel lines were drawn on using a 2B
pencil/silver marker pen and the dirtying was done using
finger tips and wet and dry paper rubbing. What a time
consuming phase it was but I was very pleased with the result.
Flying
The
final weight included 4 standard servo and was exactly
5lbs. This resulted in a wing loading of 18.5 oz/sq.ft
which I was quite happy with and, if the wing section proved
to be a goer, I expected a good performance.
As
often happens, conditions had not allowed me to test the
aircraft before its first meeting in May and of course on the
day the wind was on the least favourable face where lift is
always poor and the landing areas are rough. Some club
members flying soarers had found thermal lift someway down the
valley and I launched off towards them. Fortunately, it
flew fine and during the day I had 3 flights. On the
second I caught a thermal and the Fury rocketed upwards in a
climbing turn but keen to get close-ups on the video camera I
returned towards the slope and shortly afterwards, kicking
myself, I had to head towards an area of pampas grass for
landing.
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The
Fury in flight - very convincing! |
I
had set myself a challenge. Inboard ailerons (fitted to
the original to allow the outer wing panels to fold), thin
flying surfaces using scale sections and washout and as much
scale detail as I could reasonably add to produce an accurate
scale model that looked exactly right and more over would fly
right. The Fury has convinced me that I need not
compromise scale dimensions to be able to enjoy both building
and flying Power Scale Soarers.
As
ever, life is different strokes for different folks and I'm
just pleased that I get so much satisfaction from a
hobby. Equally, I enjoy seeing others doing it their way
just as much, as long as we are all having fun!
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Model
Spec
Length
: 48.5"
Span
: 52.5"
Wing
Area : 4.33sq.ft
Wing
Loading : 18.5 oz/sq.ft
Weight
: 80 oz (5 lbs) |
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