A Depron Harrier

The front part of the Mk II profile fuselage being built around the EDF/duct unit.

On the Mk I the EDF unit was 'inserted' into the completed fuselage and gave limited structural support to the fuselage.
Although the Mk II is still a profile fuselage it will be nearly twice as thick in the middle portion both to give a wider 'pad' for the wing and for better support to the nose section.

Just a little point but my previous post is marked 23:27 today but it is only 20:37 as I type this!

Edit
And this has been posted as 19:37!

Edit 2
I guess the Model Chat clock is on GMT but the Yesterday/Today change is on BST!

The fuselage moves on but progress is inversely proportional to the degree of squeezing in!
This shows the fat fuselage around the EDF & duct.

The battery panniers with the duct tail fairings.

The bell mouth of the EDF is faired into the front of the ducts.

This time there are battery covers as well.
The ESC under the RH battery has its own fairing but it leaves the heat sink fully exposed.

The new LH wing is complete but the wing will only be installed right at the end as once it place it severely restricts access.

Complete at last - apart from a bit of paint.

It weighs 11.6oz (329 g) ready to go.
I shall probably regret doing this but this time I have buried everything in the hollow profile fuselage so there is no visible wiring.



Even the 35 Meg aerial emerges from the puffer bulge at the end of the fuselage.

I am pretty sure the current circular nozzles are less efficient than the simple square duct ones I used initially so I will have to make some more that more closely follow the full size shape,

The actual vanes are all right but the outer shell will probably have to be some sort of moulding.

It does fly but it is a bit short of thrust.
The improved nozzles are thus rather more urgent.
The MkII and MkIII nozzles.

Still all Depron but the major difference is the shell now has a 'built in' outer curve.
The inside edge also has a smooth radius.

The nozzle area is also larger.

The nose 'flexing' also reared it head again despite the increased fuselage width and balsa reinforcing. First flight was only about 30 seconds.
However with the nose simply removed it flew again no problem although it did look a bit odd!

I suspect the best solution is simply to shorten the nose a bit (currently the fuselage side area ahead of the CofG is more than behind!) both to stiffen it and to improve the directional stability. It wont be exact scale but then it isn't anyway.

Should be ready (new nozzles and short nose) for tomorrow.

Flew yesterday with the new nozzles and shortened nose and all went well.
So a quick paint job to make it look a bit more Harrier like although technically it started as a GR3 (camouflage) although it is now painted like a Sea Harrier but hey! its not true scale anyway.

A bit of a tortuous journey to get to this point when the original intention was to build a quick and simple 'proof of concept' plane.

Still the lessons learned should make the next step (bigger and with a scale fuselage) a bit easier. Believe that and you believe anything! :woohoo:
However I have the Q400 to finish first.

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