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Aviation History
1929
1929 - 1116.PDF
FLIGHT. MAY 30, 1929 Structural Design " Simplicity has been aimed at in planning the structuraldesign of the " Robin," and wood is the material most extensively used, the employment of metal being confinedto fittings and a few highly-stressed parts. The fuselage is a wooden " box " having four sprucelongerons in the corners, and top, bottom and sides covered with a thin ply-wood veneer. Light formers are placed atintervals to retain the rectangular cross-sectional shape, these formers consisting of panels with very light spruceframes and thin ply-wood walls lightened by large cut-outs. Up to the cabin the fuselage is deep and the deck formsa roof except for the skylight already referred to. In front of the cabin, however, the deck drops considerably so asto provide the forward opening of the front window or windscreen. The lower longerons extend right up to theengine plate, but owing to the sudden drop in the deck in front of the cabin, the top longerons of the engine mountingare short separate lengths, stopping short at the front wall of the cabin. The engine plate itself is a multi-plywoodformer, and is attached to the longerons by rather neat steel fittings, which are simply short lengths of square-sectionsteel tubes, split for a distance along the corners, and the free ends thus formed being turned out at right angles.In this way a flanged socket is formed without the use of welding. The diagonal bracing of the forward part of thefuselage, i.e., from cabin to engine plate, takes the form of steel tubes. The petrol tank, with a capacity of 8 gallons,is housed in the forward deck fairing, above the pilot's legs, a position which still gives sufficient " head " to enabledirect gravity feed to the engine to be employed. The monoplane wing is built in two halves, hinged to thefuselage top corners, and braced each by a pair of struts arranged in the form of a Vee. The upper ends of the wingbracing struts are attached to the wing spars by steel straps, while at the fuselage end the two tubular struts have forkends fitting over a sheet steel fitting bolted to the fuselage. As the lift is taken from this point, a steel strap bolted tothe corner fitting runs right across the bottom of the fuselage The tail of the ["FLIGHT" Photograph Robin " is of orthodox construction and design. to the corresponding fitting on the opposite side, whileinside the fuselage a tie rod transmits the tension. This tie rod lies along a plane just above the top of the lowerlongerons, and as the external steel strap is just below the lower longerons, the whole structure is so stabilised thatno twisting stresses are imposed upon the lower longerons. Across the top of the fuselage runs a Duralumin tube,which terminates at each end in a sheet steel fork, between the jaws of which a Duralumin block is swivelled. Thisblock, which is vertical, has a horizontal hole drilled through it for the reception, in the case of the front spar fittings, ofthe locking pin used in connection with the wing-folding - ,, , ,.,.:„::.•.-:,.•' : [" FLIGHT " ON THE A.B.C. " ROBIN " : The lift strut attachment to the fuselage is shown in 1, and details of the wing construction in 2. In 3 is illustrated the attachment of the lift strut to the rear spar, and in 4 the duralumin tube across the top of the fuselage, and which carries the fork and block for the wing spar attachment.
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