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Nigel Hawes designed and built this very attractive Rockwell
T2 Buckeye which has graced the slopes at several PSS
meetings in recent months. Here Nigel describes the
path he took in producing this eye-catching model.
It's time to
crawl out of the woodwork (no pun intended) regarding the
construction and design (?) of my Rockwell T2 Buckeye, which
I believe has graced (or should that be DIS-graced?) the
pages of this magazine in the not too distant past.
I have had
many kind comments about the end product, indeed it has won
'Best Jet' during its short life, but I must admit that
underneath all the glitzy lipstick and curls lurks a 'rough
old country botch' for which I should perhaps obtain a dog
license. I can think of several excuses for this but
the one I'm sticking to is that I had only seven weeks to do
it before the Northumberland PSS event last April, and it
had to be ready. Any which way! Fortunately, I
found the strength to overcome the embarrassment of
photographing it during construction, so the shots should
emphasise just what you can get away with when you're
in a hurry and flat broke!
Opting for a
larger model this time (so I'd stand more chance of SEEING
it crash!) the Buckeye was ideal as it had all the right
proportions, together with a colourscheme liable to glow in
the dark. So, having found a nice article in
'Airplane' magazine and settling for 1/7th-ish scale, battle
commenced.
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Dad
turned me a couple of round front formers on his
wood lathe. These were joined with 1/2" square
balsa, nose block added and we had a front end!
The rest of the fuselage formers were loosely
outlined from blue foam, on the basis that they
could be 'cut down' when I found that everything
else didn't fit.
The massive
fin and dorsal gusset were a framework of 1/2"
balsa, with a split rudder needed for the cruciform
tail arrangement. The tailplane was a built up
structure from 3/8" sheet cut into strips.
The two
partial structures were adjusted to mate with each
other, but first all the gaps in the fuselage
structure were filled with blue foam blocks which
were sanded to shape. |
When joined up it dawned on me that this
was one big bird and room in my signal box workshop was
going to be diminished rapidly! Everything in sight
was then sheeted in 1/16" balsa.
The Eppler 205 wing cores were cut out by
Neil McHardy and myself out of white foam and veneered,
shortly afterwards I sat on one panel and damaged it - I'll
let YOU guess whether I made another or fixed that one up!!
Having cut the wing seat at the correct incidence and
organised the wing bolt mounting system, an 'engine unit'
was clagged together using white foam, balsa, veneer and
loads of filler. This unit screws on underneath,
giving the Buckeye its characteristic chunky depth.
After making a cockpit interior with pilots, a canopy for a
Fouga Magister (which I'd bought from Ray Jones at Woodvale
in 1984!!) was modified to fit and the entire airframe was
covered in Solartex. Radio installation was
simplicity, the flaps and ailerons use different lengths of
torque rods running parallel.
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The finish is white
cellulose primer and Day-Glo orange which was
sprayed on in a car booth and once detail such
as panel lines, decals (all hand cut from vinyl)
and other graffiti had been added, the whole
thing was lacquered using 2-pack car lacquer.
The black bits are car tyre wall black which was
finally added at 2am on the morning of the event
and whilst still tacky for the test flight, at
least it didn't stick to the fingers enough to
prevent the launch ... and it was dry when I
landed it!! |
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Although I was well
briefed for the flight (i.e. - I had a spare pair of
underpants) it was docile and predictable and I look
forward to exploring its potential at this years events.
It looked a bit bare without the wing tanks (which are
blue foam covered in Solarfilm and then tyre wall blacked
and resemble elephant suppositories) but performance and
trim appear unaltered with them fitted. All in all
a pleasant conclusion to seven weeks panic!!
So next time you vote
at an event for a beautifully finished model, depicting
the original in almost every
aspect,.....BEWARE!!......it might hide a variety of
evils, especially if its one of mine! But who
cares, so long as it looks good, flies well, performs
reliably and realistically with a reasonable measure of
strength for harsh arrivals? It's not HOW you do
it, it's AS LONG AS YOU DO IT!
So go do it!! |
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