I have glued together the broken sections again. Then filled in all the gravel rash and hanger damage. A nice sand down and I started on the few mods I would like to do. First is adding a rudder. I sliced off the rudder section and sanded it up. I got the soldering iron and bored out a hole in the foam for the servo to sit under the rudder. It will directly drive the rudder so there will be no linkages to see. I just put a coat of paint on the fin but as it always happens - ran out of paint half way through the spray job. I will now be starting on installing the tail/elevators, which I will make full surface control.

Here's a few photos of the bones of the rudder mod:

I got the bits I needed to make my tail controls and built it up:

I decided to use iron on covering on the tail pieces but the heat from the gun while shrinking it also warped the plasticy foam the tails are made out of. Whoops!... so I had to make up a set of balsa tail halves.

I epoxied the brass sleeves in and then did a test fit of the tail fins to see how the system aligned up and looked. I'll mount them (the tail fins) once the fins and the body are covered (the ruler is just there to hold the fins in place while I took the photo).

The Poly C process went very smoothly. A few wrinkles I had sanded out easily and the finish is quite smooth and tough.

I taped the busted nose back together and made a template to hold the fuse end of the nose in shape as I will be making a mold to make a new nose up. Something a little stronger than the plastic cup material this one is made out of. I skinned the bottom of the wing in white and red tips. i closed up the gaps that were for the main wing pushrod exits in the fuse. I painted the red attachments on the rudder piece white. I also popped out the 2 air scoops at the rear of the cockpit and painted them white. I have covered the fuse in tissue/polyC.

Decided to put the lettering on the tail:

I finished the fuse - I only put the large NAVY decal on so far though. I also decided to make balsa ailerons as the original foamies are just too flimsy.

Finished the top of the wing. Did the canopy and added some more decals. The red at the intake gets done the same time I do the nose.

Ailerons are now done.

I finally got around to doing the fibreglass nosecone too. Now to paint it up.

Nose cone is now done.

I got the nose fitted and added the red paint to the fuse leading to the nose. I replaced the rear fuse decals with better quality ones and added a few to the wings.

I ended up just cutting some vinyl for the anti-glare black section on the nose. I cut a really thin strip and stuck it on to mark the outline - traced that on tissue paper then dropped it onto the vinyl and cut out the shape. I pulled off the outline and stuck down the cutout. I also placed the nose numbers on too.

Once I make and fit the F/G ducts, I can paint each lip of the intakes red. That will then be the outside finished.

After a long, fruitless search I failed to find a replacement SAPAC fan so I decided to try one I found on Hobby City that looked like it could do the job. What a beauty! It feels like twice the thrust of the original unit, a wattage powerfan with a 3600 inrunner, I was going to put in there! After a bit of filing, drilling, grinding and more sanding I got the shroud right to fit the motor. More grinding and sanding got the outer diameter down enough to fit into the space allocated for it in the fuse. Some cutting away of the foam as this shroud was longer both ways, and I got it mounted.

I had to trim up the bits of foam I cut out and then reglued them back in place. Finally! The motor is in.

Progress Report - Saturday 07 June 2008:

I am in the process of making intake duct tubes for the Hawk. Once done we can start aiming for a miaden flight!