Blackadder's Scratchbuilt Thunderhawk

[Blackadder]

It's Starting to Grow on Me

When I first saw the Thunderhawk quite a few years ago I thought it was the most ridiculous looking transport vehicle ever conceived. but these new iterations have transformed the initial abomination into a hulking brute that actually seems almost airworthy.

Even the engines seem of a size adequate to propel said craft through the welkin.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/nXaWZpd.jpg[/url]


These exhaust cones have a lot to them besides being just a nozzle for it seems there is a setup for afterburners at least in the Inquisitor images.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/MvyaKlg.jpg[/url]


My big problem now is not being reminded how much they look like peach baskets.......

[url]http://i.imgur.com/pKybQdQ.jpg[/url]

[Blackadder]

Afterburner Injector Housings

Below are the beginnings of the Afterburner Injector Housings.

I started with strips of sheet styrene about 15 inches long and wrapped around a cylinder of require diameter (in this case a toothpick dispenser) and wrapped around three times to give the housing the requisite thickness for a solid foundation.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/bJwIjF5.jpg[/url]


After the glue on the cylinder is dried I beveled the incerted edge and scored the inner surface of the exhaust nozzle to get a good glue bond and glued the housing into the exhaust cone.

Once dried the housings will be ready for detailing.

[Blackadder]

Fitting the Right Wing Engine Exhaust Cone

Anyone following my threads knows I rarely follow any preconceived plan of execution so when something works out this well I am flabbergasted.

The Fruny Green Mouthwash bottle caps worked out perfectly both in diameter and length (I always felt the exhaust cone in the background image and in the 3D rendering were too long to be aesthetically pleasing) but a little cutting with the Dremel rasp carved out a clean bed for the ejector housing base.

Here we see the wing separated into its 3 major components (Excepting the nose cowl) They are Wing Root and engine assembly, Wing and Exhaust cone:

[url]http://i.imgur.com/mCbRHJZ.jpg[/url]


And the assembled components dry fitted;

[url]http://i.imgur.com/pgfxESu.jpg[/url]


I never glue anything together until I'm 100% sure it works..........

[Blackadder]

Serendipity Rears its Ugly Head

Don't hate me because I'm lucky.

Back when I was building the engines in order to bulk up the adjacent wing surfaces I applied box beams to either side of the engines. I had forgotten about them so when I cut into the ends of the engine cowl I found these ready made receptacles for removable stringers attached to the exhaust cones.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/6kchHzJ.jpg[/url]


A little care in aligning the plug in stringers and there are plug in exhaust components so access to the battery operated LED lighting.

By pressing on the lens of the flashlight activates the pushbutton switch at the base of the light allowing it to be turned on and off without removal.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/2siqcih.jpg[/url]


Now it only remains to colour the cones to glow superheated when the light is activated to simulate afterburners.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/1VFha00.jpg[/url]

[Dlatrex]

That's a pretty neat feature! Props for being brave enough to stick your finger in an exhaust vent. ;-)

[magickbk]

Nothing feels as good as when you discover you accidentally did something awesome that you didn't plan when you started the project. Are you going to put something in front of the lamp to dull or reflect the beam back into the cone? It looks a little bright straight-on, although that could just be the photo and not reality.

[Blackadder]

Nothing feels as good as when you discover you accidentally did something awesome that you didn't plan when you started the project. Are you going to put something in front of the lamp to dull or reflect the beam back into the cone? It looks a little bright straight-on, although that could just be the photo and not reality.

This is the effect I am going for



How close I come remains to be seen...........

[Blackadder]

The Nose Cowling

Back (Egad!) so many years ago when my son first started this project I helped him out by shaping the nose cowls out of PVC pipe. I had no concept of the scale of a Thunderhawk but I figured on an aircraft of this size that a man could stand upright in the intake duct.

I used a table top belt sander to obtain a satisfactory rough shape and that is where I left the cowls assuming once the rest of the 'Hawk was well underway I could always polish them to a finished appearance.

Now 4 years later and I having inherited the project my son being away in college and no time for such things I take up the completion of the cowlings still as yet unpolished.

Below you see an assembled cowl and the three components that make it up

[url]http://i.imgur.com/6Rk1knl.jpg[/url]


I plan to make the fans today.............

[Blackadder]

How Many Blades?

After viewing a number of intake fan assemblies of Thunderhawks I have decided on 16 blades; the reason being expediency.

Were I to go more and readily divide the fan by 4 the next logical number of blades would not be 20 but 24. 20 is out because of the necessity of dividing each quarter of the disk into five blades. Since the disk is only 25 mm in diameter the chances increase having different width blades regardless how sharp your pencil/ scribe may be. 24 blades though easier to calculate also increases the margin for error.

If memory serves an L1011 Rolls Royce engine has around 32 blades but those blades are close to a meter long (From the center of the hub) and that is a much larger aircraft than the Thunderhawk is purported to be.

[Blackadder]

Fan Manufacture an Easier Way for Larger Fans

16 blades seems the best for while easy to fit accurately on a disk it is busy enough to simulate an intake fan especially if the cuts are made on an angle to augment the illusion of a fan.

For that reason I have selected styrene 1,0 MM thick.

I began by dividing the disc into quarters:

[url]http://i.imgur.com/0X8BhzN.jpg[/url]


and then into 16 segments the ends of the blades coincidentally worked out to 5,0 mm wide.

I then glued a small hub to the center of the disc to act as a guide for the inner end of the cut (To prevent the blades from being cut off completely.):

[url]http://i.imgur.com/NkfqUMw.jpg[/url]


Employing my chisel blade I cut into each segment at approximately a 45° angle so the edges of the blades appear to overlap.

[url]http://i.imgur.com/CruF7Ux.jpg[/url]


After all the cuts were made I glued a small disc to the back of the fan to reinforce the axis point and with needle nose pliers twisted the blades to give a fan like appearance.