Avro 504 N/O 1/20th scale electric

[g_kandylakis]

First test assembly of all the main parts. It finally looks like an aeroplane.

And as one can see, the fuselage is still not finished, some things were being done in parallel.

[g_kandylakis]

wing struts were also cut and sanded to shape. 2mm thick basswood. The little lugs are for alignment to the templates, to be sanded away once the side outline has gotten its shape.

The outer wing strut pairs are different than the inner pair, in that they are not as wide, so there were 4 different templates to make for front/rear and inner/outer.

Once cut and properly sanded to shape they were sanded to airfoil section.

The wing ceter struts were also positioned to the fuselage for a first test. And to the wing center section.

[g_kandylakis]

additional aluminium tubing pieces glued to the wing center section for the center struts to attach too.

We are close to 1000 posts in the forum, I am not going to be the one to break that milestone, so I will pause for a while...

[ZIP.58]

Jorgos, your Avro model is simply fantastic. I would love to see it in person sometime.

Best regards, Peter

[g_kandylakis]

Thank you Peter,

would be great to see you again too... And the rest of the Swiss friends.

And now we go to a somewhat unfittingpart, the rc system installation...

As I wrote earlier, the model doubles as a free flight and radio control, depending on the occasion and the flying site size.

This will be a 4 channel rc model, using a Parkzone brick with two linear servos for the tail and an extra servo for the ailerons.

The Rx is fixed on a plywood base that can slide in/out of the model, through the nose, for servicing purposes. The linear servo movement needs to be transformed to a rotational pull-pull system, through the shown bellcrank assembly

[g_kandylakis]

The bellcrank in pieces.

Temporary brass rod connectors from the servos to the bellcranks, to establish their correct length

[g_kandylakis]

The fuselage, finished some time ago, all stringers added and the temporary block removed, looks much better now.

The bellcrank in position.

The balsa sliding guides for the Rx tray inside the fuselage are also visible.

[g_kandylakis]

Change of subject, enough with rc...

The landing gear of the Avro N is somewhat complicated, as will be explained later.

To make matters worse, the wish to be able to interchange land and hydro system needed some thought. The whole system would have to be screwd in and out from the bottom, so a ply base was made, actually three of them. On for the landing gear, one for the float assembly and one as a temporary undetailed landing gear for the first tests.

The metal lugs are the attachment bases for the "V" landing gear struts.

[g_kandylakis]

The landing gear struts would be made of aluminium tubing with balsa fairings. The tubing ends would be formed to go over the lugs and be secured with 0,5mm pins.

[g_kandylakis]

...

[g_kandylakis]

The bottom connection of the "V" also took some tries to get it right. An inital thoght of a connecting plate did not come out that well, plus it did not solve the problem of attachnig the horizontal bar between the two "V"s.

[g_kandylakis]

An alternative was found, involving tubing of various diameters and bent wire connectors, which looked good and seemed strong enough and stable as well.

[g_kandylakis]

and the necessary delays for assembly pictures.

Wings are also finished here, basswood wing tips added at last.

[g_kandylakis]

The main landing gear base shown before was for the "V", which is the fixed part of the landing gear. The wheel axle is fixed on the forward struts, with rubber suspension. On the original they would hang lower because of their weight.

I wanted to replicate the effect, to make tha landing gear drop as well when flying. This meant again some more head scratching and engineering.

The front struts attach to a second base out of plywood, also removable for exhange purposes.

[g_kandylakis]

The next couple of posts are more about metal working than model building.

To make the final struts some jigs were improvised, for drilling and slotting them properly and repeatably.

The end holes had to be perpendicular to the tubing