Fairey Fulmar (oz1790)

 

Fairey Fulmar (oz1790) by Dave Diels 1984 - plan thumbnail

About this Plan

Fairey Fulmar. Peanut scale model WWII carrier fighter.

Quote: "THE CONCEPT for the development of the Fairey 'Fulmar' came from the Royal Navy's need for an up-to-date fleet fighter to operate from the smaller carriers of the period. The result was an aircraft that was a delight to fly, reasonably heavily armed with a useful operational range. Sadly the specification called for an additional crew member to cope with the navigational requirements of a carrier based aircraft. This led inevitably to a reduction in performance compared to its land-based contemporaries. Nevertheless the Fairey 'Fulmar' stood the Navy in good stead until the later days of the war when American aircraft such as the Corsair and Hellcat made their appearance.

The Fairey Fulmar was a development from the P.4/34 two-seat light bomber. The first prototype flew in January, 1940 and over 240 Fulmar Mk I's were subsequently built, powered by the Merlin VIII. Not surprisingly the Fulmar was kept secret until mention was made in Parliament late in 1940. Its first operational sorties were in the Mediterranean theatre in 1941 where one squadron of Fulmars from HMS Formidable was involved in an attack on a group of enemy warships including Italy's finest, the battleship Vittorio Veneto. In all some 650 Fulmars (Mks I and II) were built during World War II.

Size your own wood: The plan shown here calls for some sizes of balsa that might not be available in your local model shop. There are two ways round this possible problem. First is to use fairly lightweight stock sizes in the nearest size up from those shown on the plan. The second option is to sand down some sheet to the right size and cut what you require from this! As we are dealing with a very small model the latter option becomes reasonably feasible.

The best way to sand down sheet for this purpose is shown in Fig.1. The fine sandpaper is fixed to your bench with double-sided sticky tape or an adhesive which you can peel off afterwards, like cowgum. This will hold the sheet firmly in place whilst you are sanding it. Cut your sheet about 4 in over-size so that you are not having to sand to the ends. Sanding the ends can (a) be difficult to sand 'square' and (b) sooner or later you will catch the end as you sand 'in' to the sheet and snap your carefully sanded work! Use a fine sandpaper on a wooden block and sand both sides of the balsa sheet. If you sand one side then the wood will bow up towards the side sanded.

Tail surfaces: Laminate stabiliser tips and rudder tip from 2 pieces of .025 x 1/20 balsa. Make frame pieces from 1/20 in square and x 1/20 in balsa as shown. When complete cover with tissue.

Wing: Laminate wing tips from two pieces of .025 x1/20 in balsa. Cut ribs as shown from 1/20 and 1/32 sheet. Use 1/20 square stock for spars, 1/20 x 1/32 for trailing edge, and 1/20 or 1/16 square stock for leading edge. Cut landing gear mount from 1/20 sheet.

Pin lower spar and trailing edge to plan. Glue ribs in place but not W1. Pin W1 in place but do not glue. Glue wing tips to trailing edge. Glue top spars to ribs W2, W3, and W4 but not to W1 or wing tips. For easier fit at W1 top spars may overlap at W1 by cutting notches in W1 wider and extending spars about 1/16 in to either side of W1. Glue leading edge in place and glue wing tips to it.

When glue has dried remove pins from both panels and prop up wing tips 37/64 in as shown and glue W1 to all spars and edges. When dry remove wing from plan and crack ends of spars and bend spars so they smoothly join the wing tips. Glue to tips.

Glue landing gear wires in place if used, after gluing gear mounts in place. Sand and carve to shape as shown. Cover wing with tissue at this time.

Fuselage: Fuselage is built using the half shell method. Cut all parts as shown from 1/20 or 1/32 sheet. Pin keel pieces to plan. Also pin 1/20 sq top piece between formers 5 and 6 as shown...."

Supplementary file notes

Planfile includes article.

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Fairey Fulmar (oz1790) by Dave Diels 1984 - model pic

Datafile:

ScaleType:
  • Fairey_Fulmar | help
    see Wikipedia | search Outerzone
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    ScaleType: This (oz1790) is a scale plan. Where possible we link scale plans to Wikipedia, using a text string called ScaleType.

    If we got this right, you now have a couple of direct links (above) to 1. see the Wikipedia page, and 2. search Oz for more plans of this type. If we didn't, then see below.


    Notes:
    ScaleType is formed from the last part of the Wikipedia page address, which here is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Fulmar
    Wikipedia page addresses may well change over time.
    For more obscure types, there currently will be no Wiki page found. We tag these cases as ScaleType = NotFound. These will change over time.
    Corrections? Use the correction form to tell us the new/better ScaleType link we should be using. Thanks.

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* Credit field

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Scaling

This model plan (like all plans on Outerzone) is supposedly scaled correctly and supposedly will print out nicely at the right size. But that doesn't always happen. If you are about to start building a model plane using this free plan, you are strongly advised to check the scaling very, very carefully before cutting any balsa wood.

 

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