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Folland Gnat 50mm EDF
23 Jun 2026 12:05 #1
by Quorneng
Folland Gnat 50mm EDF was created by Quorneng
Although I built it in 2009! it appears I never described it on this site at the time or so the search engine says!
It was about my first EDF to use a printed duct and followed my preferred "EDF at the back layout".
In addition its 8 blade EDF was sized to match the inlet area available from the scale inlets which meant using a relatively small EDF.
As a result the airframe had to very light being made almost exclusively from 2mm sheet Depron.
The long duct was used as a "spine" to support the fuselage formers.
Slowly it was planked in 2mm Depron. It was also my first to use solid "magnet" wire ESC to motor to save weight rather than conventional silicone insulated multi strand wire.
The scale thickness anhedral wing was skinned in 2mm Depron.
and used a wood/Depron/wood box spar.
As I reported in Mach this year it suffered a serious nose plant!
Atlast today it is all back together.
Any test flying will have to wait for some seriously calm weather.
On a scale note I built it with a fixed tailplane and elevators. On another web site it was pointed out the Gnat used a power assisted all moving tailplane. What I took to be the elevators were actually just trim tabs on the full size.
A further point was there was no hydraulic back up for the tailplane. If the hydraulics failed you had to disconnect it and fly using just the manual trim tabs as elevators. It worked but was considered far from ideal in a military aircraft particularly for low level flying. Perhaps no one told the Red Arrows!
When HAL in India built the Gnat under licence the first thing they did was to duplicate the tailplane hydraulic system!
Incidentally the lead designer for the Gnat was W E W Petter. His other design work included the Westland Lysander, English Electric Canberra & Lightning before he moved to Folland.
Quite a record!
It was about my first EDF to use a printed duct and followed my preferred "EDF at the back layout".
In addition its 8 blade EDF was sized to match the inlet area available from the scale inlets which meant using a relatively small EDF.
As a result the airframe had to very light being made almost exclusively from 2mm sheet Depron.
The long duct was used as a "spine" to support the fuselage formers.
Slowly it was planked in 2mm Depron. It was also my first to use solid "magnet" wire ESC to motor to save weight rather than conventional silicone insulated multi strand wire.
The scale thickness anhedral wing was skinned in 2mm Depron.
and used a wood/Depron/wood box spar.
As I reported in Mach this year it suffered a serious nose plant!
Atlast today it is all back together.
Any test flying will have to wait for some seriously calm weather.
On a scale note I built it with a fixed tailplane and elevators. On another web site it was pointed out the Gnat used a power assisted all moving tailplane. What I took to be the elevators were actually just trim tabs on the full size.
A further point was there was no hydraulic back up for the tailplane. If the hydraulics failed you had to disconnect it and fly using just the manual trim tabs as elevators. It worked but was considered far from ideal in a military aircraft particularly for low level flying. Perhaps no one told the Red Arrows!
When HAL in India built the Gnat under licence the first thing they did was to duplicate the tailplane hydraulic system!
Incidentally the lead designer for the Gnat was W E W Petter. His other design work included the Westland Lysander, English Electric Canberra & Lightning before he moved to Folland.
Quite a record!
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