12' DH Vampire

[andy johnson]

All the stringers have been fitted on the fuz and the nose leg woodwork is all in ,also the battery box is built in above the nose leg .I have started to also fit the wood work for the main undercarridge in the wings . the air intake boxes have been built ready for the front of the inner wing panels to be sheeted .

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undercarridge.JPG (29.65 KiB) Viewed 13826 times

[andy johnson]

Tonight I have offered up the engine to sort out fixings and so I can measure the tail pipe lenght , I have fitted the engine just infront of the c+g so I need a long tail pipe at 830mm .The engine looks very small fitted it's a Wren 160 turbine ,just shows how much space I have to work with .

engine fit.JPG (29.97 KiB) Viewed 13825 times

[David Brown]

Looking good Andy, I have a jet pipe twin wall for a 160 spare which is about 900 long surplus to needs.

[andy johnson]

Hi Dave , that sounds good ,can you bring it to catton to the garden party and I will have a look at it then ,I will also have the units fitted by then so I can give you the leg lenths I need .
Thanks Andy

[andy johnson]

tonight I got the woodwork done for both main retract units and finished off the second air intake .

mains.JPG (64.76 KiB) Viewed 13677 times

[andy johnson]

tonights work was to put in all the woodwork to mount the engine ,the engine has ended up bang on the c+g ,

engine1.JPG (29.56 KiB) Viewed 13550 times

Also because the wing tubes dont cross the fuz I have added 2 metal straps across to add strenth on the main spar ,both of these are bolted in so can be removed if needed , the main spar does cross over the fuz in a polo shape so this together is more than strong enough .

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engine4.JPG (27.67 KiB) Viewed 13550 times

[andy johnson]

After a week off working on the Vampire because of going to catton hall , I'm back on it every night .
The top hatch was origonaly going to drop in with catches front and back but I have changed my mind and to make it easyer to remove I am going to use 2 dowls and the front and 2 catches at the back , but to do this I needed the rear former of the hatch to be on an angle to allow this to work .

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top hatch2.JPG (23.4 KiB) Viewed 13329 times

This is the last job needed on the fuz before it gets sheeted so it's of to Georges house for sheeting while I carry on with the wings

[andy johnson]

On each outer wing pannel there is an Aileron ,flap and Airbrake . the Aileron was built and sheeted along with most of the wing weeks ago but the area of the flap and airbrake was left until now .
I have had to alter the size of the Flap because of where the wing joint is making the flap slightly smaller than it should be , i have now built the flaps and sheeted the the area around them ,I now only have the airbrake left to finish off before i can do the final sand ready for glassing.

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flaps1.JPG (22.36 KiB) Viewed 13328 times

[andy johnson]

tonight I have worked on the tail plane ,the top is now sheeted and I have made the servo boxes for the elevators ,I have decided to use Hitec HS-5685MH servos on all controls so I have just bought 13 of them .I choose these because they are high voltage servos designed to work on 7.4 volts ,this means i can use A123 batterys with worrying about burning the servos out
Specs at 7.4 volt they give 12.9kg of torque and they come with a good selection of arms with one nice metal one

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tailplane2.JPG (38.47 KiB) Viewed 13254 times

[andy johnson]

Over the weekend I called round to George's house to see how the sheeting was going on the fuz ,also we needed to drill out the wing fixings before the stub wing pannels could be sheeted ,as the sheeting goes on it's looks much bigger .

doo.jpg (32.15 KiB) Viewed 13152 times

[andy johnson]

tonight ,I've been working on the elevator , its been altered to be 2 elevators to keep to LMA / CAA paperwork ,I have yet to fit the blocks to fix the control horns on before sheeting the bottom.

[andy johnson]

A lot has been done since my last post nearly 2 weeks ago , the fuz and top hatch has now been sheeted ,this has been along job for George because of all the double curves but he's done a great job of it.

bottom fuz.JPG (21.27 KiB) Viewed 12982 times

top fuz.JPG (23.96 KiB) Viewed 12982 times

I have finished off the tail plane ,built the new rudders and shaped the fins ,started work on the booms and fitting the fins to them . Also I have built the airbrakes for the wings and finished of the outer flaps .
This week I intend to start sheeting the booms .I also need to build a new work bench 11ft by 4 ft so I can put it all together to lock the tail and fins on the booms .

tailend.JPG (21.44 KiB) Viewed 12982 times

IMG_1355.JPG (26.46 KiB) Viewed 12982 times

[andy johnson]

new bench built today 10ft by 4ft , I can now carry on with fitting the booms to the wing .

tablevamp.JPG (29.31 KiB) Viewed 12904 times

[andy johnson]

This week as been finishing off the nose area with a removable top half for nose weight right up front, also I have built the front of the air intakes and finished of the leading edge of the wing.
I have started to rub the sheeting down to get the nice smooth shapes,
The booms are yet to be sheeted as these need to be seen by my inspector tomorrow, then I will sheet them next ,I have left them to last because to will be difficult to work on once they are built and glued in place .my aim is to be glassing by the end of the month, hopefully the retract legs will arrive very soon and I also need to find a canopy then I will have everything needed to finish it off.
I have been looking for a canopy for a while and what I have come up with is a 1/5 scale Mustang canopy, the back half if very near and I will make the front half myself out of flat sheet

nose view.JPG (18.25 KiB) Viewed 12730 times

nose off.JPG (16.3 KiB) Viewed 12730 times

nosecone.JPG (14.92 KiB) Viewed 12730 times

[Alan Cantwell 1131]

Andy, have you tried sarik vacforms? http://www.sarik-vacform.com/aircraft.html

[Alan Cantwell 1131]

some of their glider canopys may be what you are after, a 1/4scale one is quite a large domed moulding,

[andy johnson]

Thanks Alan ,I have now decided on a mustang canopy as it is very close to what I need .
My Inspector came across on saturday for its inspection which it passes so it's onto the booms and tail of the model .I have got most of the sheeting on both booms upto where I need to fit the rudder servos and fit the pull pull wires ,the servo is up near the back of the wing to keep as much weight forward as I can.
This model has got through a couple of balsa tree's already ,but I think I now have all the wood I need to finish it ,so far I've spent over £1000 on wood alone .

boomsheet.JPG (26.39 KiB) Viewed 12581 times

[andy johnson]

Most of the building is now done apart from fitting the booms to the wing ,this will be done as late as possible to make it easier to work on , so I have now give the fuz and tail plane its final sand and started to glass cloth them .

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[andy johnson]

since my last post I have had a rear leg from Dave Brown so I could put the wheel wells in the outer panels , this means the outer panels can now be finished off.The wheel is a 7" sulivan skylight ,it should be 8" for scale but there not as easy to find , Dave is making a scale hubs with wheel brakes so they will look good .

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wheel well 2.JPG (18.29 KiB) Viewed 12347 times

the outer wings and all control surfaces have been sanded and painted in white primer ,I will be test flying the model in white before putting the colours on it .

wings in paint.JPG (20.46 KiB) Viewed 12347 times

bits in paint.JPG (18.58 KiB) Viewed 12347 times

I intend to fit the servos in the wing and hinge the control surfaces next so I can put the wings away along with the tail plane .
I have also been working on the fuz and now have the tail pipe fitted and the glassing done on the fuz ready to sand ,I hope to fix the booms on the fuz next weekend so I can finish off the woodwork on the inner wing panels

tail pipe.JPG (26.48 KiB) Viewed 12347 times

wings on .JPG (24.27 KiB) Viewed 12347 times

[andy johnson]

I have spent all friday, saturday and sunday in the workshop this weekend and have now finished all the balsa work and the outer wings ,tail plane and control surfaces are in primer Every servo have been fitted and removed and some of the wiring has been fitted .

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