Fauvette (oz14609)

About this Plan

Fauvette. Radio control sport-scale glider model. Wingspan 212 cm.

Note the 'original' drawing here is the CAD zip download (in dwg format). That's the file that Giuseppe sent us, and that is his design, his work. The PDF file you see here is really just a taster, a PDF file in this slot for Oz users who don't have a CAD viewer.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Quote (google-translated from the Italian): "The most recent gliders are certainly splendid machines, both from a performance point of view and from an aesthetic point of view. However, they have lines that make them very similar to each other, even if the eye of the enthusiast is able to distinguish an LS from a DG or an ASW. It is much more difficult to distinguish an ASW24 from an ASW27, a DG600 from a DG800 and so on. Their shape is conditioned by the need to develop the minimum possible resistance, given certain dimensions, and aeronautical research has led to completely similar shapes.

The situation was quite different just 30 or 40 years ago. The gliders of that era have very different lines, easily recognisable, in short, they have personalities. Having a penchant for models with 'rudders', perhaps because I remember with pleasure my first slope gliders, a Vega from Aviomodelli and a semi-reproduction, very semi, of the Salto produced by Wik, I decided to reproducing, in a simple way, a French glider from the 50s: the 'Fauvette'.

A bit of history: The first flight of the Fauvette dates back to 1958, only one year after the flight of the first 'all fibre' glider built in the world: the 'Phlnix'. The Breguet 905 Fauvette was designed by J. Cayla to fill the gap between the two-seater and high-performance gliders of the time. It was produced both as a kit and as a complete aircraft. The aircraft had some success although it was quite expensive, it was grounded for a time in 1969 due to structural problems relating to the attachment of the cabin to the rest of the fuselage. After this date, reinforcing plates appeared at the attachment points below the leading edge of the wing.

The structure is a strange set of techniques and technologies. The main part is the central one, a spatial structure in metal tubes, everything else is literally attached to it. The nose and the central part of the fuselage are molded in a composite sandwich consisting of glass wool, klegecel, glass wool. The tail boom, the fixed parts of the rudders, the leading edges of the wings are made with a laminate of 6 mm plywood, klegecel and again 6 mm plywood. The back of the wing is covered in plywood, while the belly is covered in canvas. The rudders are hinged at the base so that they can assume the vertical position to facilitate transport.

The control surfaces are ribbed and covered in canvas. The fairing behind the cabin is removable and this greatly facilitates the assembly of the wings, even on the model, and is held in position with quick release locks.

Flight Characteristics: The pilots highly appreciated the flight characteristics of the Fauvette: precise and well-coordinated controls and no bad habits. The only criticism of its behavior is related to a certain insufficiency of rudder in crosswind takeoffs. The glider is light and is particularly good in low thermal conditions. The speed performances are not that great, even in consideration of the modest maximum efficiency (30:1). An Englishman, however, with the Fauvette established a distance record in 1959 with 625 kilometres, making the most of the sea breeze on the south coast of England.

The model: The wingspan was fixed in such a way as to make the most of the available measures of polystyrene and balsa. Compared to the scale dimensions I slightly increased the wing chord at the attack and, to a greater extent, that at the tip. The finished model weighs 1250 grams, which, for a surface area of 28 dm2, gives a wing loading of 45 g/dm2.

The airfoil is an SD3010, with good characteristics even at low NR and reduced resistance even for high lift coefficients.

The Fauvette has demonstrated surprising qualities of lateral stability, rather scarce in small gliders; its flight is tense, plastic and quite fast. The wings are in 15-18 kg/m3 polystyrene, covered in 1.5 mai balsa, after inserting 40 g/m2 fabric in the areas indicated on the drawing.

The fabric strengthens the trailing edge area (which is very thin on strings of this size) and allows the balsa to be thinned down to minimal thickness without danger of warping the trailing edge line . Before coating, both the false plywood rib and the brass tubes housing the bayonets are glued in place. To obtain correct alignment it is advisable to construct a ladder for making the holes in the polystyrene. If the matter seems complex to you, it can be simplified by making two rectangular notches in the root of the wing, after the covering, in which to glue two poplar plywood blocks in which the bayonet holder tubes are inserted.

The blocks should protrude slightly from the profile at the time of gluing, so as to be sure that they are glued to the cladding and not just to the polystyrene..."

Supplementary file notes

Article.

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