Fairey Swordfish Mk1 (oz3455)

About this Plan

Fairey Swordfish. Scale power model of the WWII biplane torpedo bomber. Printed with a hatched background.

Quote: "If a modeller wishes to build a scale model, the chances are ninety-nine in a hundred that one of his requirements is that the prototype shall be well-known. How admirably does the 'Swordfish' fulfil this requirement! The last biplane to see service in quantity in the British Forces is an obvious choice for a scale biplane fan, and Lt Col Batchelor's model has captured the exact atmosphere of this last survivor of the 'wind in the wires' era.

The model is not for the beginner, but any average modeller with a little experience should have no trouble in building it - there are no really difficult parts, but a fair amount of work is required and the construction cannot be hurried. Standard building techniques are employed throughout, but an instruction leaflet summarising the construction sequence and so forth accompanies each plan.

Being a fairly heavy model, and rather under-powered (by competition standards, at least) the Stringbag is a steady flyer, at its best in relatively calm air. A stately climb and glide, with little marked difference in speed, were features of the original, and the Amco .87 used entailed a take-off run in the region of forty feet. A minimum motor size of .75 cc is necessary for flight, with a top limit of 1.3 cc, and the machine should be trimmed to fly in left-hand circles of at least 100 ft in diameter. The glide should be in slightly wider left circles. No bad habits have become evident, except that in rough air the model can be upset at a height of three or four feet by ground turbulence. In the event of any mishap, the rugged, knock-off structure is hardly likely to suffer extensive damage.

Just as in the full size aircraft, the actual rigging in the model holds the flying surfaces in their true positions, the knock-off ability relying on small balsa shear pins passing through the tongues. This model Swordfish is definitely designed for the connoisseurs' building board, and as such we anticipate seeing a good many of them in the contours and flying scale events throughout next season..."

Update 03/08/2015: Replaced this plan with a version that is scaled up to full-size at 37in wingspan, thanks to MikeHollamby. Note this is now a large filesize at 4MB.

Update 07/11/2017: Replaced this plan with a clearer copy, thanks to hogal.

Note this plan is a 2-colour 600dpi bitmap PDF, reduced down from hogal's vector tracing. For the original hogal tracing (probably shows more detail) see supplementary file.

Supplementary file notes

Article.
Previous scan version (patterned background).
PDFvector plan tracing (hogal).

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