150 Scale VMC (Veron) rubber-powered Hurricane

I'd second what Andy says about lightening holes - they save very little weight and can, depending on location within the structure, be a source of weakness, To make a noticeable saving in weight you have to remove a lot of the wood - too much under most circumstances from an established design. It's an old saying that what's not there can't weigh very much, but the rider to that is that you have to sure it doesn't need to be there in the first place.
Mike

Thanks for the comments, Andy.

Regarding the stooge board, I put the main support post behind the winding uprights in the hope of avoiding front guy ropes. I know what will happen if I have them... I'll trip on them and smash something that's taken me 50 hours of concentration to make. I need to try this one out to see how it fares - am waiting for a windless evening... However, I am lucky enough to have my own flying field thirty paces from my back door, so I could build a heavy duty permanent construction into the fence and forsake the guy ropes completely. I could use this board for travelling.

On the subject of lightening holes, yes, I thought hard about these, too, pondering the two approaches. I unscientifically concluded that the real strength of the fuselage was in the stringers and not the individual formers, so I didn't really make a decision, as such, I just found myself drilling holes one night! This is, after all, a mule, to test out new ideas. Thinking on't again, I wonder if holes work better when lightening across the grain, i.e. across the more horizontal areas of the former, and thinning works better when with the grain on the sides of the fuselage? I even thought of building the fuselage, then glueing a 1/16th square cross grain brace on each former as close to the stringers as possible, then removing everything inside it. However, I wondered how much weight would be saved by the time I'd added more glue and the extra balsa? Also, if I'm going to adopt this approach, it's probably better to do it before I build the fuselage, not after! I even thought of keeping every other former intact and virtually eliminating those in between and, indeed, combinations of all the above... In the end I drilled, and saved a gram, however, most of that is behind the CoG so, with luck, not a wasted effort.

I will order some Esaki and see how different it is to the stuff I have used thus far.

Regarding my new, simultaneous, project, I haven't decided what to build quite yet, but did discover the Outerzone plan site last night. What a wonderful resource, I was like a gob-stopper eyed kid in a giant sweet shop. I downloaded a few, about four, or so I thought, till I checked this morning... No, the actual number was seventeen plans! It appears there are quite a few planes I'd like to build. This next one will definitely be a biplane, that's all I know for sure - probably...

Crashrr

Oh - and one way of making sure that lightening holes in formers and like don't lead to localised splitting is to cover the former or whatever (including the holes!) with tissue doped on.
Mike

Mike - great idea to dope and tissue the formers.

Outerzone is wonderful isn't it. At risk of giving you further distraction there is www.hippocketaeronautics.com/hpa_plans/index.php

Wow - what a site - many thanks
Mike

The skeleton is almost complete, so time to make the decision as to which variant of Hurricane I am building...


Gone for the unusual Russian open two-seater artillery spotter variant - principally because it's different and I really wanted to make a machine-gun! Spare a thought for the poor souls who had to man this craft in winter... It must have been SO cold!!!


There's been no progress on my depron wheels and the retractable undercarriage because the POR glue I ordered on 4 August hasn't arrived...

wonderful looking work so far.

not seen that version of a hurricane before.

Tony B

Good Lord! A new one on me as well. I knew the Russians had some Hurricanes, but is a really unusual version.
Mike

I even came across a biplane version of the Hurricane. Only one was ever made as a trial, the idea being that it would be able to climb much faster with two wings, then, having attained attacking height, it would... wait for it.... jettison the upper wing! When this idea was deemed impractical, they thought it may work as a short takeoff plane or a heavy lifter. However, as the Merlin engine became more powerful, the standard planes attained these benefits anyway.

If you google Hurricane Biplane you find plenty of images of the monstrosity...

Never heard of an open cockpit Hurricane great idea Crashrr

I understand the slip wing concept was not to improve the climb rate as such but to allow over weight take offs from the many grass airfields.
The Hillson Bimono was built to test the concept and it did indeed slip its wing in flight - over the sea off Blackpool!
A slip wing Hurricane was built and flown but it never slipped the wing in flight.

As you say the increasing power of the Merlin coupled with the vast airfield building program with proper hard runways allowed ever increasing maximum take off weights.

That Hillson Bimono looks a nice aircraft with or without the sijp wing.Have to see if I can find a plan

Following the thread with interest, how things have moved on in such a short time.

They also did a twin bomber version I believe

The Bimono 3 view.

With only a 20 ft span I bet it was quite a 'hot' ship when flown as a monoplane.

It was powered by a 200 hp Gipsy Six.