West Wings WW33 Hawker Hunter EDF 707mm

This model in the West Wings range re-creates the most famous British jet fighter of them all. The Hawker Hunter is arguably one of the most attractive jets ever built and West Wings have gone to great lengths to retain that character in their kit. The design has been kept as close to scale as possible, with the only deviations being made on the basis of necessity.

The design of the fuselage looks complex at first glance, but is actually very simple and quick to build. The fuselage formers are made from 2mm birch ply and are accurately CNC cut to give strength where required and reduced weight where possible. The vacuum-formed inlet ducts are easy to install and have been carefully designed to provide maximum performance with the minimum of drag. The inlets are of course over-scale in size, but only as much as is necessary to feed the fan with the correct amount of air. The fuselage is sheeted in 1.5mm (1/16th) balsa and is surprisingly easy and quick to do.

Wings are conventional in construction and the section chosen is particularly suited to this scale plan-form and the projected flight envelope. The characteristic sawtooth leading edge is incorporated and the scale anhedral helps prevent dutch rolling in this swept wing design. A small amount of washout is also built in for low speed stability.

The tail area is very slightly over scale, as a result of flight-testing, yet is not obvious to the eye. The fin has a simple built-up structure and is amazingly rigid when assembled.

For the scale-orientated modeller, the kit includes vacuum formings for the air brake and forward cannon shell clip collectors. The choice of colour schemes is the standard camouflage of 74 Sqn RAF and a full set of decals are supplied. The outlet nozzle is for the non brake-chute version but could be easily modified.

Flight performance can be ballistic with a 480/33 brushless motor. Prototypes have used the Wemotec 480 Mini Fan but other fan units can also be used. The battery pack is significant in the overall weight of the model and you should make a careful choice, bearing in mind capacity, cell size/weight and ability to deliver high current. The design will accommodate a wide variety of cell types by positioning the pack accordingly. Please bear in mind that this model is designed to be bungee launched and its static thrust will be insufficient to even attempt hand launching unless using the top end motor/cell combination.

You will need three micro servos (around 9g), two of which, should be no more than 9mm thick. The wing thickness will only accommodate servos of this size.

Flight characteristics are similar to many high-performance models with higher wing loading. Not a beginner's model, but fine for the moderately experienced pilot that is used to fast, small models.

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