Scratch Built Hannibal

Must be the scale manner in which you can see the dim lights moving from one side of the screen to the other nonetheless Brian, i'm glad you enjoyed it!!

The Hannibal project ground to a halt last year when the weather prevented outdoor working. Today I patched up the tip of the right wing, this was a bit of a mess having lost an argument with a stroppy tree. The picture isn't particularly interesting, but those of you who can remember the days before ARTFs and foamies, will recognise the "Solarbo" logo on the !/4" X 3" obeche sheet and good old Britfix balsa cement. I found the Britfix when having a rare "tidy up" session. I was surprised when the cap unscrewed, even more so when the cement was still liquid. I don't recall when I bought that tube of cement, but it was in the 20th Century, and Grant's Models in Charminster were still in business. Must be at least forty years ago. I didn't use the balsa cement, I prefer aliphatic resin.

The elevator and rudder controls are "pull pull" single wire with an idler pulley. It seemed a shame to operate the ailerons with a conventional push-rod. Today I made a pair of servo/pulley mounts, these will be glued to the main spar and an adjacent rib. I would have fitted them today, but I didn't have any suitable wire to make extension leads. I thought it would be nice to give "Herman the German" a decent cockpit to "sit" in, I made a simple open topped box and fitted it into the space between the wings. The box has a "sort of" instrument panel, this stops it lifting out during flight, the back of the box is retained by an extended version of the original Flair designed wing/fuselage fairing.Tomorrow I've got to find a way to fit the Spandau machine gun. A bit of an awkward job as the gun fits between the wing halves. Something will occur no doubt.
The shot of the Hannibal assembled on a stand might look a bit odd, the U/C has nothing to do with the stand, unfortunate that the paint colour almost matches. The shot of Herman looking over the right wing makes him look suitably menacing. The poor chap can't look directly ahead, there's a ruddy great gun in the way!

Today I found that the packet of control horns from Hobbyking only had nine in it. I should have checked it out when they arrived last year. Now HK inform me that I can't order some extras as they don't have any stock. The other bit of "good" news came via the Postman. He left a neat little card stating that the replacement 12 blade fan was waiting to be collected at the Winton office. This cost less than £7.00. The Post Office and HMRC want a total fee of £18.37. The total isn't far short of a complete fan unit from Hobbyking, but they wouldn't have one anyway. Would they?

You dont have a lot of choice now but to pay up, if you dont collect your parcel within x amount of days the Post Office will return it to the sender or destroy it, BUT you will still be liable for the charges, so you could end up with no goods and a bill from HMRC

Thanks Chris, When I checked the package this morning, Hobbyking had boxed three more items that I felt sure were coming from the UK warehouse, so it wasn't just a replacement impeller after all.