Back by popular demand, the E-flite Hawker Sea Fury 480 ARF is an impressive-looking, electric-powered sport scale version of the noteworthy British fighter. The new Sea Fury now is made with injection-molded Z-Foam making it very lightweight, durable and easily repairable (foam-safe CA glue is not required). It comes with nice scale details including molded panel lines, factory-paint job and installed cockpit, pilot figure and canopy. There are also some nice factory-finished rockets to add and for that impressive warbird look, mechanical retractable landing gear are included. Two additional servos are required to drive the retracts. This is an ARF model and some assembly is required. Let’s start by gathering all your equipment!
Unique Features
You have a choice in the landing gear and installing either the fixed wire gear or the retractable gear is the first order of business. After this, the wing is finished off by gluing on the aft attachment portion of the wing root and installing the aileron servos. I used double-sided foam carpet tape for this task. A neat feature of the wing is its large, prepainted underbelly panel that is installed with double-sided tape to cover the spar tube, servo wires and the landing gear attachment points. Installing the aileron control linkages completes the wing.
In The Air
The E-flite Hawker Sea Fury is a delight to fly. It’s lightweight and takes off in almost no time at all from a smooth paved surface. Having relatively small wheels, you’ll need fairly short grass to take off from the sod, but it is also very easy to hand launch. You can build the Sea Fury with 4-channel control (fixed gear with rudder) or 5 channels with the retractable landing gear installed. With a fully charged and a proper center of gravity balance, this aggressive-looking warbird is really a sheep in wolf’s clothing!
Bottom Line
With an assembly time of about four to six hours, the E-flite Hawker Sea Fury is both a unique and attractive addition to anyone’s warbird collection. Having a relatively light wing loading, the Sea Fury is a great flyer and very pilot friendly. Add to this the Park 480 outrunner motor for increased power and install the retractable landing gear, and you’ll feel like an ace shoot ’em up pilot in no time. If you are tired of seeing Mustangs and Spitfires on the flightline, try the Sea Fury on for size!
Specifications
Model: Hawker Sea Fury 480
Manufacturer: E-flite (e-fliterc.com)
Distributor: Horizon Hobby (horizonhobby.com)
Type: Molded foam, ARF fighter
Wingspan: 36.8 in. Overall length: 33.3 in.
Wing area: 268 sq. in.
Weight: 31.0 oz.
Wing loading: 16.6 oz./sq. ft.
Motor req’d: 450-480 brushless outrunner
Radio req’d: 4-channel minimum (retracts optional)
Flight duration: 6 to 8 minutes
Price: $99.99
Highlights
++Flies great
++Optional retracts
++Easy build
++Nice scale appearance
See Gerry Yarrish’s full review in the March issue of Model Airplane News!
