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Silver Wings Hawker Hart Review Build

Lower Wings

Before attaching the lower wings, you may want to test fit your radiator, and sand the mating surface as needed to ensure that the brackets fit properly. Once you are satisfied with the fit, you will want to drill out the interplane strut attachment holes at a slight angle outwards and forward. If you wish, you can make a drilling angle template from a piece of cardboard using the drawing on page 8 of the instructions (see photo 19). You may also want to drill out your rigging attachment points, depending on your rigging method of choice. Note that the Hart, like many British biplanes of the Interwar era, did not use external turn buckles, rather these were hidden beneath the surface of the wing.

Test fit each wing to the fuselage. Once you are satisfied with the fit, you are ready to attach them. The instructions kindly let us know that the bottom side of the wing tip should be 11mm higher than its attachment at the fuselage. An easy way to ensure proper fit and dihedral is as follows.

Using an old kit box, or some other thin cardboard, cut two 11mm strips. Then, using some old styrofoam; Legos; or your favorite jig material, set up your jig so that your landing gear will not interfere with your fit. Test fit both wings, and slide your 11mm cardboard strip into place under each wing tip. If all looks correct, remove the wings and glue one wing into position, sliding your 11mm strip under the tip. Once this wing has set, repeat the process for the opposite side. See photo 19 and 20.

Struts

Now is a good time to familiarize yourself with the struts provided in the kit. In photo 22, you can see we have interplane struts (wing-to-wing); cabane struts (upper wing -to-fuselage) and tailplane struts. Note that the tailplane struts are different lengths, with the two longer struts being the forward pair, and the shorter the rear pair. The same applies to the cabane struts, the longer pair go forward, and the shorter pair go towards the rear. With the interplane struts, the 2 shorter struts are the middle almost vertical struts, with the remaining 4 being the forward and rear struts as indicated (note the slight difference in the notch at the end of the strut – which faces the middle strut where they attach).

Rear Empennage

The tailplane and rudder can be attached at this point, or after you have attached the upper wing (or even later if you need to paint stripes on your rudder). Depending on your material of choice for the control lines, you can either attach them to the fuselage at this point, or after painting/decaling. You may want to drill some holes in the horizontal stabilizer where the control lines attach to make it easier to do so, as well as drill holes for the rigging material of your choice.

■ The instructions indicate that when you attach the main horizontal stabilizer, the vertical stabilizer has a rod that should fit in an indent at the back of the horizontal stab. However, I found that if I aligned these two parts, there was a bit of a gap at the front of the horizontal stab. I enlarged the hole a bit towards the rear, and everything fit fine. Note that there is a small post that needs to be placed between the fuselage and the horizontal stab, aligning with the aforementioned rod on the vertical stab. You may wish to drill out the hole for this rod in the fuselage, and place a longer than necessary rod in the hole. You can then pull it up from the fuselage to attach it to the horizontal stabilizer, ensuring a perfect fit without the need to measure.
■ With the horizontal stabilizer in place, you can now attach the support struts. As mentioned above, the two longer struts are the forward ones, and the shorter ones are the rear. I cut the attachment pins off the bottom of the two rear struts, as they meet inside the hole in the fuselage. I did find that I needed to keep the all the pins on the forward struts; otherwise they would have been too short.
■ Once the main horizontal stab is on, you can attach the control surfaces. Don’t forget to attach the control horns to the elevators and rudder prior to attaching them to the rest of the rear empennage. Photo 23 shows the completed rear empennage.