Gloster Gannet (oz9345)

About this Plan

Gloster Gannet. Scale model biplane for rubber power.

Quote: "A charming British biplane from the early 1920s with perfect moments and areas for FF Scale. Gloster Gannet, by Don Srull.

In 1923 the Daily Mail of London sponsored the first British Light Aeroplane Trials at Lympne. Among the dozen or so entrants was a charming little biplane called the Gannet, built by the Gloucestershire Aircraft Co. Ltd. of Cheltenham, England. With a span of only 18 feet, the Gannet was one of the smallest airplanes entered. It was of all wood construction and weighed 238 pounds empty. The 750cc, two cylinder, two stroke engine had been specifically developed for the Gannet, but proved to be particularly unreliable and prevented completion of the required flight performance program at the Lympne trials.

Even though its initial showing was totally unimpressive, the Gannet is an interesting and colorful aircraft and is particularly well-suited as a free-flight model subject; especially rubber power. It has reasonably long nose and tail moments for a biplane, fairly large stabilizer area, adequate dihedral and a generally clean and stable layout. Since good 3-view and other scale documentation is available, a fully scale and detailed model was laid out. It is sized at 1.2 in = 1 ft, or 1/10 scale. This yields a wing span of 21.6 in and an area of about 148 square inches.

Completing the scale documentation proved to be somewhat of a problem. As is often the case with vintage aircraft, determining the color scheme was not easy. Good black and white photos were obtained, but no reference to the Gannet's two color paint scheme could be found. Most experts I consulted believed the two colors were either pale blue and cream, or grey and white.

The Gannet has turned out to be a stable, easy to trim model with better than average looks and flight capability. If built with care it can be a serious competitor in AMA or FAC scale events. My model weighs about 1.9 ounces minus rubber, and can fly fairly consistently over one minute. It placed second in the rubber scale event at the 1980 AMA Nats.

The model is built, for the most part, using conventional stick-and-tissue techniques, so I will only describe a few of the gimmicks and shortcuts found to be useful on the Gannet. Use straight grained light balsa throughout except for longerons and spars..."

Gloster Gannet, Flying Models, February 1983.

Direct submission to Outerzone.

Supplementary file notes

Article pages, thanks to RFJ.

Corrections?

Did we get something wrong with these details about this plan (especially the datafile)? That happens sometimes. You can help us fix it.
Add a correction