Grumman AA5 Traveler Project 5

[Gearup]

Grumman AA5 Traveler in parallel with four other light aircraft models.

[Gearup]

cherry wood

[lastvautour]

I have never tried cherry wood. How hard is it?

Lou

[Gearup]

It works much like maple. Not as hard. Sands well. Easy to scorch with sanding if using power tools. Stable and strong is why I use it for thin empennage parts. I have lots of small scraps from making furniture and it is too nice to toss out.

[Gearup]

AA5 stabilizer slot is long due to the incorporation of the stab fairings fwd of the leading edge root. Wing fairing blocks added to fuselage ready to carve.

[lastvautour]

Coming along nicely.

Lou

[Gearup]

Fairing the fairing, as it were. 

The AA5 series had a large one piece fairing at the root. It served as the walkway and covered the root spar.

 The wing spar was 5 pieces of aluminum tube about 10 inches in diameter. The center section was bent to provide the dihedral and the wing root spar was a slip fit inside and they overlapped about 10 inches. Two (2) small shouldered bolds kept the whole thing together. Think about an inch long by 3/8" diameter. 

[Gearup]

Wing tips have a significant under camber. Again a fibreglass structure that was really large for a small aircraft. 

Shaded the tip with a pencil and removed material by sanding until the tip was thinner and followed the upper airfoil. 

[lastvautour]

Well done wing tips. The Traveler has been a favorite of mine.

Lou

[Gearup]

Mine too😀
Fraser

[Gearup]

The AA5 series were all of bonded construction  with honeycomb panels making most of the fuselage. Hence the boxy look. None of the flight controls or wing surfaces had external stiffener's as the other aircraft in this series did. Ahhh so simple.....

[Gearup]

Primed. Bonded construction of original makes for a nice smooth empennage.  

[Gearup]

Vertical fin, stabilizer and fuselage filled and all parts primed. Major parts mocked up together.

Next is to mount empennage and cut the wings to fit.

[lastvautour]

All are looking good.

Lou

[Gearup]

Progress on the AA5. Wings and empennage pinned and fitted together. I took the pictures with a single light and it really makes the surfaces look like hammer work. Once they parts are glued up, i'll need to gap fill and smooth the models. Or I'll just take pictures that are more out of focus...

img 4401: Wing root pins drilled and locator pins installed to make the marks on the fairing holes. The plan is to set the dihedral during the glue up then fill the joints. I'll probably sand the finish to bare wood on the fairing joint for better adhesion.

img 4403: top rear quarter view. Sitting on the table saw, it is actually a color picture. The machining scratches on the surface of the saw look very much defined in the picture. Still need work on the model finish though.

img 4404: I've made spinners for the airplanes out of dowel on the wood lathe. The AA5 has a huge spinner for a 150 hp engine.