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As a result of cutting the flaps away, there are now bits missing from them and these need to be manufactured to plug the gaps and give the correct aerofoil section. I did this by laminating pieces of plasticard cut roughly to size and then cementing these in place. After waiting 24 hours for the cement to thoroughly dry, a bit of filing, sanding and shaping now needs to be done to give the aerofoil shape to the flaps.
The flap jacks – parts 81, 82 and 83 – have to be cut along the hinge line, as the front will be attached to the wings and the rear to the flaps. This needs to be done carefully as the hinge line is not straight. I cut the main part of the hinge using a razor saw and then carefully cut around the remainder with a scalpel. You don’t need to cut all the way through, just cut sufficiently so that you may gently bend the two halves apart.
The Hawk has double-slotted flaps and the smaller of these will have to be scratch built. I made these by cutting two pieces of .02” plasticard measuring 64mm x 3mm and then filing and sanding to an aerofoil shape.
These are attached to the flaps by five small actuators which attach to the leading edge of the main flap. I estimated where these went by referencing to photographs. The actuators, again, were made from plasticard.
I made them slightly oversized then adjusted them when attached to the flaps until I was satisfied that the two flaps were lined up correctly.
The flaps continue under the fuselage and, as a result, this has to be allowed for. I used the flaps to mark out the area that has to be cut-away and then cut this away using a scalpel and refined the shape by just scraping the scalpel along the cut out area.
I also decided not to use the option to have the ailerons moveable. By not using this option, the gaps left in the aileron for the hinges may be plugged as there is no such gap on the real thing.
Once the plugs were dry, the aerofoil section was restored.
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