Fairey Gannet AEW3

Despite being away on holiday for this long weekend I managed to get a few bits done that were nagging me.

As you know the whole plane will be glassed with 25g/m² cloth for structural reasons. I am going to use a water based product either Delux Ez-Cote or Johnsons floor varnish which is a WBPU product and seems to have similar in properties. So did a few test pieces to see how the balsa sheeting distorted with the products. Couldn't see any difference very slight curving of the sheeting when wet but dried flat. As all of the sheeting on the plane is supported by frames and longerons it should be OK to use a water based product. The glass could not be removed without damaging the balsa sheeting. So for cost reasons I'm going with the Johnson WBPU product. Ordered the glass cloth from Ebay at £4/m² good value.

The first item to be covered as soon as the glass cloth arrives is the tailplane as that is now finished.

The ESC's have arrived, bought some YEP HV 120A ones and they have now been tested. Seem to be good. The only electronic item to buy is the Opti-power guardian power supply.

So all in all i'm getting there, albeit very slowly. Sorry no photo's.

Thanks for the update sir.

glad to see you are still working on the gannet.

Good to see you are still working on her, I sent for a load of those cutting discs we talked about from china/ebay they never arrived and no response to my emails, good job it was only small monies involved, first time I have had a problem

Managed to get some time in on the Gannet today. Made the three RDS servo mounts, 2 for ailerons and one for the rudder.

The ply plate will be glued to the airframe (captive nuts not shown) then the ally servo mount is screwed to the ply plate. This allows me to remove the servo by sliding the ally plate backwards and up away from the RDS rod which will be trapped in the control surface.

Going flying tomorrow so no work on the Gannet. Going to maiden my own design autogyro!! :ohmy: :ohmy: :S

Very neat Good luck with it

Rudder RDS is installed and working. Really pleased with it considering it is my first RDS system. Once I have cleaned up the rear formers and longerons I will sheet the rear part of the fuselage. Access to the rudder servo will be via a fibreglass hatch that I will mold off the sheeted section. The hatch will be held on by magnets. :woohoo:

The glass cloth arrived from China this week so I will glass the tailplane later today. So by the end of today the rear section of the fuselage will be sheeted and the tailplane glassed.

Oh! the autogyro flew beautifully on its maiden on Thursday evening. Minor trim changes and she was away. I think i'm getting the hang of the aero modelling lark!! [badass]

Looking good on the Gannet! Happy to hear the AG flew! One of the things that helped me the most with orientation was to put a contrasting color on the bottom of the horizontal stabs. I used a neon pink! It doesn't detract from the overall colour scheme and tells you instantly which way it's banked. Helps with my tired eyes.

Just seen this Try Bang Good for cutting discs .Loads of choice very reasonable prices and no postal charges Abrasive and saw types

Thanks Don. To be honest I wasn't expecting the AG to last long so didn't bother with trim on the blades. :sick: Now it looks like a keeper i've put yellow on the top and black on the bottom of the blades.

One Tenor - thanks for the heads up on the cutting discs. Usefull, thanks.

Well I just went to start covering the tailplane and realised I hadn't let in a 1/64th ply edge trim to stop the balsa curling up at the tailplane / elevator edge. So I made up a sanding block with an edge guide to give me an accurate width all the way down the tailplane edge. The photo makes it clearer. Then I will inlay the 1/64th ply. So its looks like a job for tomorrow unless its good enough to go flying in which case its going to be a job for evenings in the week. a good days progress. [badass]

Ha! I know what you mean. The attrition rate for AGs is pretty high until you get the hang of it.
Hopefully the ply doesn't change the lateral cg of the blades too much.


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I assume even the 1/64 is 3 ply.
If it is and you are trying to stop 'curl' shouldn't that ply go with the grain the other way?

You are correct except this is an odd piece of two ply. I got it from a furniture restorers who use it for inlays and the like. This piece was actually used for a guitar. Underneath this edge are the ends of the ribs which also support the edge so i'm not too worried.

If its 2 ply fair enough.

Up early this morning and got a bit more done before I went flying. I wasn't to comfortable about the long length of the rudder RDS wiper arm so made a support tube with a bearing tube that slides in/out of it. The support tube had to be big enough for the drive that slides into the servo to pass through if I wanted to maintain it. The bearing tube slides in and is kept in place by a small flange that is screwed to the rudder post. Sounds complicated but a photo saves a thousand words. The whole bearing system only weights a few grams so quite pleased and my mind is settled now. Also added another part of the fuselage sheeting.

Its been a while and now the weather has changed so not much flying to be had so its back to the Gannet build over the winter. Todays job was to sort out the aileron installation to allow the RDS to work and permit the servo to be removed if needed. The picture shows the template for the hatch support frame. The dotted line represents the hatch to be cut out of the lower wing skin. Once this is done i can install the mounting plate into the top wing skin. Not much but another bit done.