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Aviation History
1926
1926 - 0609.PDF
AUGUST 26, 1926 THE AVRO "AVIAN" 65 H.P. Armstrong-Siddeley "Genet" Engine IN designing a machine especially for the forthcoming Lympne Light 'Plane Competition for prizes offered by the Daily Mai! and others, there are two lines along which the problem of gaining the highest number of points may be attacked : one is to carry no more than the useful load of 340 lbs. stipulated as a minimum, and to use for the carrying of this load the smallest power plant which can be counted upon to get the machine around the 2,000 miles' course at an average speed of not less than 50 m.p.h., tuning the engine to use as little fuel as possible ; the other consists in taking as a starting- point the most powerful engine available within the maximum weight allowance of 170 lbs., and designing for it a machine which will carry considerably more than the 340 lbs. useful load. In between these two extremes there are, of course, a number of combinations possible. Mr. Chadwick, chief designer and engineer to A. V. Roe and Co., Ltd., has chosen to follow the latter course, partly as offering the best solution for the competition, but equally because in so doing a machine is, he considers, produced which is of a type likely to be practically useful to clubs, private owners, etc., quite apart: from competition considerations. From the Lympne competition point of view, the Avro .' Avian," as the new machine is called, is characterised by very low structure weight and great load-carrying capacity, while with future production in mind, the detail construction is of the simplest imaginable form without departing radically from normal practice. There are rumours of a new Ford " runabout " in which the fuselage is to be built up from stamped-out sides, tops and bottoms, and wings in which the top and bottom surfaces are also stamped out in one operation ; but until the day comes when aeroplanes can be produced in thousands the plant necessary to do this is likely to be expensive, and Mr. Chadwick has not quite gone to this extent in his search for cheapness of production. As regards its suitability for " point-getting " at Lympne, it may be stated, although very accurate figures are not yet available, that the " Avian " has an estimated empty weight of round about 750 lbs., while its total loaded weight, within the airworthiness certificate, will be rather more than double that figure. As the longest distance to be covered in the competition without landing is something like 124 miles, the fuel to be carried must be sufficient for this distance plus a margin for head winds, etc. This means that the quantity of fuel to be carried will be fairly considerable, but a rough estimate indicates that the point-scoring load which the " Avian " will be able to carry may be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 750 lbs. To enable the machine to pass the take-off and pull-up tests in the eliminating trials with a total LYMPNE COMPETITION MACHINE AS A LOW-WING MONOPLANE ASA SEAPLANE THE AVRO " AVIAN " : Fitted with one of the new Armstrong-Siddeley " Genet " engines, this machine will be produced in three forms as shown above. For the Lympne competition large wings are fitted. For speed rather than load-carrying, the upper wing is removed and the machine turned into a low-wing monoplane. Finally, it is proposed to fit it with floats for seaplane work. 533
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