Flyfly Hawker Hunter Assembly and modifications.
I always wanted to build and fly a Hawker Hunter jet. To me it is the epitome of the 60’s era in jet design. After looking without success for a kit, I happened upon the Flyfly kit made in China.
Even after finding out that it wasn’t perhaps the quality of a Freewing or E-flight kit I decided to take the plunge and order one from Great Kits located in southern California. Since I was going to be in the Coachella Valley area I had it mailed to my address there along with another kit from them. The smaller kit arrived within two days, however the Hunter took four weeks for delivery. It went from California to Detroit twice and back and then languished in a holding facility in Palm Springs for a week .
Finally I got delivery after being told I wasn’t home to accept the delivery the prior week (not so) and proceeded to unpack the box. From the photos you can perhaps see the missing box of small parts, and the missing fan unit. Also the broken fin on the underwing fuel tank. What is not so obvious is the warped wings, the ‘banana’ fuselage, the warped elevators and the stab., and the extremely poor hinging system. There was no rudder on the fin, just the outline of where it should go and similarly no flaps. So just ailerons and elevator for controlMissing from the kit apart from the fan unit already mentioned, were any of the undercarriage parts, various nuts bolts and sundries and any way of having a nose wheel system fixed or retractablle. I realized that this was going to be marathon of mystery modifications and as such I researched others who had done the same.
The wings took an age to de-warp but finally they were straight and the aileron hinges replaced, servos installed, with far superior horns than those supplied, retracts repositioned and added in a slightly rearward location. Attaching the wings together was difficultly because the thin plywood formers supplied did not fit very well and took quite a long time to re-cut, sand and glue. I elected to assemble the tail section before hand and add a moveable rudder at this time.
The fuselage, after much straightening, adding the plywood formers, and making a platform for the retractable nose wheel, was about to be joined together with the spine accommodating the cables, when I noticed that each half was different from the other especially around the EDF unit and where they were to fit with the wing. Much carving away of foam and modification around the internal shroud it finally fitted as well as I could get it without weakening the whole fuselage at that point. The fit between the wing and fuselage was gross but aside from filling it in with putty and messing up the paint job I left it as is. The wing was then married to the fuselage and attached with only two 5mm machine screws. To me this did not feel strong enough however I left it as is and hope that the maiden will prove it’s all OK.
At this point I decided that it should have lights, wheel pants for the mains and the decals be for the one that flew under Tower Bridge in London.
I do not recommend this kit unless you are willing to spend a lot of time on modifications and re designing the engineering.
I always wanted to build and fly a Hawker Hunter jet. To me it is the epitome of the 60’s era in jet design. After looking without success for a kit, I happened upon the Flyfly kit made in China.
Even after finding out that it wasn’t perhaps the quality of a Freewing or E-flight kit I decided to take the plunge and order one from Great Kits located in southern California. Since I was going to be in the Coachella Valley area I had it mailed to my address there along with another kit from them. The smaller kit arrived within two days, however the Hunter took four weeks for delivery. It went from California to Detroit twice and back and then languished in a holding facility in Palm Springs for a week .
Finally I got delivery after being told I wasn’t home to accept the delivery the prior week (not so) and proceeded to unpack the box. From the photos you can perhaps see the missing box of small parts, and the missing fan unit. Also the broken fin on the underwing fuel tank. What is not so obvious is the warped wings, the ‘banana’ fuselage, the warped elevators and the stab., and the extremely poor hinging system. There was no rudder on the fin, just the outline of where it should go and similarly no flaps. So just ailerons and elevator for controlMissing from the kit apart from the fan unit already mentioned, were any of the undercarriage parts, various nuts bolts and sundries and any way of having a nose wheel system fixed or retractablle. I realized that this was going to be marathon of mystery modifications and as such I researched others who had done the same.
The wings took an age to de-warp but finally they were straight and the aileron hinges replaced, servos installed, with far superior horns than those supplied, retracts repositioned and added in a slightly rearward location. Attaching the wings together was difficultly because the thin plywood formers supplied did not fit very well and took quite a long time to re-cut, sand and glue. I elected to assemble the tail section before hand and add a moveable rudder at this time.
The fuselage, after much straightening, adding the plywood formers, and making a platform for the retractable nose wheel, was about to be joined together with the spine accommodating the cables, when I noticed that each half was different from the other especially around the EDF unit and where they were to fit with the wing. Much carving away of foam and modification around the internal shroud it finally fitted as well as I could get it without weakening the whole fuselage at that point. The fit between the wing and fuselage was gross but aside from filling it in with putty and messing up the paint job I left it as is. The wing was then married to the fuselage and attached with only two 5mm machine screws. To me this did not feel strong enough however I left it as is and hope that the maiden will prove it’s all OK.
At this point I decided that it should have lights, wheel pants for the mains and the decals be for the one that flew under Tower Bridge in London.
I do not recommend this kit unless you are willing to spend a lot of time on modifications and re designing the engineering.
