Hart Fighter vs Demon?

[Test Graham]

Were there any differences?

Yes, this is based upon the new AZ kit, so I'd better summarise. You get one sprue from their Pegasus Hart, partly for common pieces (you know, wings, undercarriages...) and partly so you can detach the gunner's position. You get part of a sprue from their Hind kit, mainly the fuselage, plus some resin exhausts and wheels. I presume their Audax works the same way: a Hind fuselage and a Hart one to chop up. The quality is fine for the larger pieces but smaller parts are a bit thick and clumsy - a moderately good short-run kit. Transfers look to be very good: crisp and clear.

Of course, I was thinking of doing this as a Demon. Differences I can see are only one forward-firing gun: is this correct for the HF or just a fault from using the Hind fuselage? The answer from the recent Mushroom Monthly book is that the kit is incorrect. The artwork shows a tailskid but the resin parts include a tailwheel. Which is right for an HF? The prototype had a skid, and so did many Demons. I suspect this is time-dependent not type-dependent.

Of course John Adams does a very nice white metal detail set for the Demon. Any chance of adding a lobsterback turret, John?

The AZ site does not list any further Hawker biplanes. They are moving on to early Fw 190As. So these kits are probably the best bet to actually do a Demon - the Hind is as good a starter as the Hart/Hart Fighter kit. Yes, I know the Airfix one is available as part of a multiset, but unless you really have a use for all the others in the set, I think the AZ a better starting point.

Mind you, if anyone has this set but doesn't want the Demon from it, my contact details are above.

[John Aero]

Were there any differences?

Yes, this is based upon the new AZ kit, so I'd better summarise. You get one sprue from their Pegasus Hart, partly for common pieces (you know, wings, undercarriages...) and partly so you can detach the gunner's position. You get part of a sprue from their Hind kit, mainly the fuselage, plus some resin exhausts and wheels. I presume their Audax works the same way: a Hind fuselage and a Hart one to chop up. The quality is fine for the larger pieces but smaller parts are a bit thick and clumsy - a moderately good short-run kit. Transfers look to be very good: crisp and clear.

Of course, I was thinking of doing this as a Demon. Differences I can see are only one forward-firing gun: is this correct for the HF or just a fault from using the Hind fuselage? The answer from the recent Mushroom Monthly book is that the kit is incorrect. The artwork shows a tailskid but the resin parts include a tailwheel. Which is right for an HF? The prototype had a skid, and so did many Demons. I suspect this is time-dependent not type-dependent.

Of course John Adams does a very nice white metal detail set for the Demon. Any chance of adding a lobsterback turret, John?

The AZ site does not list any further Hawker biplanes. They are moving on to early Fw 190As. So these kits are probably the best bet to actually do a Demon - the Hind is as good a starter as the Hart/Hart Fighter kit. Yes, I know the Airfix one is available as part of a multiset, but unless you really have a use for all the others in the set, I think the AZ a better starting point.

Mind you, if anyone has this set but doesn't want the Demon from it, my contact details are above.

The Hart fighter did not have a tailwheel. Here is one from my collection.

John

[Test Graham]

Neither does it have a gun on the starboard side, so perhaps that is the difference between the Hart Fighter and the Demon?

[Ptmvarsityfan]

Just a couple of points,only six Hart Fighters were

delivered and they had skids and from photos no

starboard machine gun.Early Demons also had skids,

later had tailwheels but don't know if these were retrofitted

or just on new-build A/C.

AZ also list an Osprey as a future release,this has been on the

website for about a year and is well down the site now, as this has

been leapfrogged by more recently announce releases.

To be honest I'm a bit disappointed with the Audax and

Hart/HF releases although I have them in the stash.AZ have

used the Swedish Hart and Hind as the basic fuselages and the Audax

and Hart need surgery to the top decking which on inspecting the

kits could be tricky as the Swedish Hart has different panels

(or stitching patterns) and seems slightly more roughly moulded than

the Hind fuselage.Also the Audax lacks the message hook and although this

should be fairly easy to add it means that the apart from the decals the

Audax kit is not really an Audax at all but merely has the parts to

convert the kit to an Audax.Likewise if a Hart is to be produced.

Hope that makes sense!

Cheers

Paul

[Test Graham]

Another possibility could be to sand down the bulge on the port side of the Pegasus Hart, then chop the engines over. It might be a cleaner simpler fit.

Thanks for reminding me about the Osprey, but I was thinking of newer releases with higher numbers. Given the quality of the finer parts on these kits, message and arrester hooks would be better made from rod anyway. It is a shame they didn't do a proper Hart fuselage, in view of the options that would open up. Preferably a fully tropicalised Hardy, which could then be cross-kitted for the other tropicalised variants. Dream on! My particular wish is a Hart Trainer, but I think the chances are nil there. New fuselage and new wing.

[John]

Posted to the wrong thread, sorry

J

Edited March 11, 2009 by John

[John Aero]

Neither does it have a gun on the starboard side, so perhaps that is the difference between the Hart Fighter and the Demon?

I didn't mention the second gun I thought we had dealt with that in a previous post. I'm sure Hawker tail wheels only arrived with the fitting of brakes.

John

[Christopher]

I too was wondering about making a Demon from the Hart fighter kit. However, having seen the photos from John I am going to give the AZ models version a miss and try and find the Airfix or Aeroclub variants.

[Test Graham]

The only item needed to be added to the AZ kit is the second gun. Most of the discussion above is directed at the Hart option, not the Fighter. Overall appearance of the tooling is superior to the elderly Aeroclub model, although John's white metal set would provide far better detail parts. I don't have the (even older) Airfix one to hand, but from memory it is also significantly inferior to the AZ. If re-released as a separate kit it would be cheaper, but at the moment it is only available in a boxed set. Older production examples do not seem to be readily available. The Aeroclub one, even less so.

It may be possible that Demons will become available from people who buy the boxed set but don't want the Demon.

[Ptmvarsityfan]

Agreed,the AZ kits are very nice with lovely

detail and are certainly superior to the

other kits.My only regret is that they haven't

produced a basic Hart fuselage which would

have enabled many more options to be built

without delicate surgery to the cockpit or possibly

nose area as you suggest.

Very surprising considering that probably a

couple of thousand Harts/Audaxes/Hardys

etc were built compared to about fifty Swedish

radial engined aircraft yet they used that as the

basic model.Bit of a missed opportunity in my

opinion but at least we have an excellent Hind

and Hart Fighter virtually straight OOB and most

of the other variants can be built with some work.

Cheers

paul

[Christopher]

Adding a second gun is in fact a major bit of work. I am not knocking the AZ kit for this, they didn't set out to make a Demon but for those of us who desire a Demon perhaps one of the other manufacturers are a better choice.

[Test Graham]

All modellers are different, and entitled to be so. However, are you misunderstanding the second gun? All it takes is filing a groove in the starboard fuselage half. OK, I haven't done it yet, but it is certainly true that the Aeroclub Demon requires much more work.

Other than that, the Aeroclub white metal accessories for the Demon will improve any kit.

Edited March 12, 2009 by Graham Boak

[Christopher]

Filing a realistic groove in plastic is one of those things I cannot manage to my satisfaction. Let me know how yours turns out.

[Test Graham]

Oh, a challenge! Done.

Not sure when I started, but it must have taken no more than half an hour. First I checked the position using the Aeroclub kit as a guide. Then placed a piece of masking tape below the desired line to protect the surface from slips. I would have put another above, but the exhausts are integral to the fuselage. (That could have been a mistake, as the exhausts have to be removed anyway for the Demon, but it didn't cause any problem in practice.) I then drew a line where the groove should be. Rather than use a pencil, I started with a blade point. This was an error, this was a curved surface and a rigid steel rule: a a pencil would have shown sooner that I'd built in a kink. That or use a more flexible steel rule. Or both.

I then selected a circular file with a fine point, and began sliding it backwards and forwards along the scrape, widening it and deepening it, I then added another piece of tape across the end to stop overscraping onto the cockpit area. A better solution would have been a small hole with a minidrill at the start. Once the groove was established, shallowing at the front, I did use a minidrill at the cockpit end to provide a more definite ending, squared off with a sharp blade later (thislast bit is not actually done yet...). The slide rule can help to straighten wobbly edges. I varied the file in use, sometimes the narrow point one held steeply to deepen the groove, sometimes held at a lower angle to widen the groove - and straighten it. I tried using a stubbier circular file for this, but found that a slim bi-convex one worked better. Nothing special about the files - I use a cheap Chinese set with a few older examples, although I think the fine one might be one of those. They are in regular use for other purposes, as are the pinvise and minidrills.

So despite a few less-than-optimal techniques, a servicable groove was done in about the same time it has taken me to log on and type this. It is slightly deeper than the one on the other side of the fuselage (which I think a little too shallow anyway) but narrower than the one in the Aeroclub kit.

I still feel that either of the other kits would be more work, but each to their own.

[Christopher]

Not a challenge - I was just interested in how it would work out. Thanks for the information.

[Test Graham]

I find this kind of fettling more fun than painting or adding transfers - that's part of the reason why I have a lot of unfinished kits . I enjoyed the diversion on a rainy morning - at least it kept me off the internet for a while!

I also tried sanding down the bulge on the B4 fuselage, to see if swapping engines would make a Hart more easily than cutting out the gunner's position. No. There's more than enough thickness in the fuselage, but the bulge goes aft onto the fabric effect and this would be too difficult to replace. Also, the finesse of the B4 fuselage is less than that of the Kestrel tooling. More reason to lament the lack of a properly tooled Hart variant in the range.

So I cut out the pilot's coaming instead, for 607's Hart Trainer. That really will be a more fiddly conversion, with the emphasis on getting the wing struts right. I did one many years ago (40?) but I hope I can do a better job this time. It was finished as the one captured by the Germans at Merville - I did wonder if that had been a 607 aircraft but apparently not.

[Ptmvarsityfan]

Interesting stuff Graham,won't now bother to

try and graft the Kestrel nose onto the Swedish

Hart.Thanks for that.

Paul

[Dave Fleming]

I find this kind of fettling more fun than painting or adding transfers - that's part of the reason why I have a lot of unfinished kits .

Thank god I'm not the only one! I'm always reading about people who 'can't wait for the painting'.