Fairey Gannet AEW3

Good boy

Did some more on the Gannet today. Glassed the fuselage with 25oz cloth and WPU varnish. Also started carving the air intake on the front of the plane. Carving is not my strong point so quite pleased with the initial shaping. A lot more to do but ok.



Here's the full size

That looks very good carving to me Ralph
Looking good

Verrrrry nice. Sorry for your loss. As you may have read I lost my darling wife last month too. On the 11th my son Anthony's birthday.

Had a eureka moment yesterday. Weather not too good for flying and no chores to deal with so was watching YouTube whilst having breakfast. There is a guy on there, Lamy RC, who builds fantastic big quality EDF airliners out of carbon fibre in what appears to be a small basement workshop somewhere in Europe. Anyway he makes some of his moulds from 3D printed sections. Then taking a Q from Q on this forum (excuse the pun ) about trying various sections in 3D printed PLA I thought about how to develop the flap mechanism.

So I have a drawing of the flap mechanism sent to me by Rod Welland (Welderfabrod on Youtube). I scanned that drawing into Fusion 360, scaled it to the right size, traced it then created the various parts.



Printed them out on the 3D printer, crudely assembled them and it all worked first time! :woohoo: :woohoo: So something I have been trying to sort out for years got fixed in a few hours. Over the moon. To actuate the flaps I will use a similar system to that on the Firefly, a torque rod and an arm at each end moved by a Firgelli linear actuator. As the flaps are split across two wing panels I will have two pushrods and will then need to link the pushrods so was thinking of a universal type joint similar to those that the model boat people use to connect the shaft to the motor. Needs some thought.



So now I will have the parts cut out of 3mm carbon sheet. The pivot points will have a brass tube inserted to reduce play.

Pictures of the 3D printed parts. Excuse the quality but it was difficult to move the parts and photograph them at the same time.

That looks amazing Ralph, just shows how 3D printing is moving into the main stream of our hobby. As a thought, all those steel nuts, bolts and washers look like unnecessary weight to me, the drone guys use nylon screws and nuts to do the same thing, much, much lighter, perhaps a thought?

Following with great interest Ralph and I'm admiring your super build. I have the 1/8th plans locked away until I have finished my current project but no harm in doodling with Fusion 360 and thinking about a wing fold mechanism.

Great work, Marty

Wow thats some work you have done there, superb

Thanks for the positive comments and encouragement. This flap issue really took the fun out of the build and thats why the Gannet got sidelined and nearly put in the bin. Now i've got the flaps 90% sorted I can crack on.

Klippy - yes the screws, nuts etc all need to be sorted. I was thinking of a brass bush for the arms to pivot on with the arms held in place with a plastic rivet. More things to play with. 3D printing is very useful for working out prototypes. I've had so many attempts at these flaps cutting up balsa, then fiberglass sheet, plasticard and so to try and sort it out. The whole exercise yesterday took less than 4 hours start to finish.

Marty - wing fold is for the Mk2 version. I've made the wings detachable so if i want wing folding its only a matter of making new wings, not a complete model. I have a basic design using two Firgelli actuators on each wing. Works in principle but needs some prototype development.

That flap linkage is a very impressive piece of linkage geometry.
I agree you will have to carefully consider how to keep friction low on the bearings particularly when there is a positive load on the flap.

That's impressive ! When compared to the simple stuff I build it's way out of my league, but I do find it inspiring !

Outstanding Ralph! as Crash said it makes my clumsy efforts look a feeble.

What happened with Ralph and his Gannet?
Lots of other 'names' who don't appear any more, as well!
It took a while to even find this build thread, as Faery Gannet came up with nothing.
The reason why? - I stumbled on this vid on the 'tube, today -

-
Ah the original site won't let the vid run, but if you click on the 'play on  you-tube' it does.

Sadly Eric, I think a lot of people don't like to spend the time posting, or they get fed up with the amount of control that goes on. We have lost so many good modellers one way or another. Mostly age related I think. As for Ralph, I suspect life got in the way, he is so much younger than us.