Styrene

Styrene

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Scratch-built 1/72 Arnoux Stablavion of 1912

From the archives (2006):

Minimalism has a long and strong tradition in aviation history.

The “less is more” paradigm has always found champions that dared to go where no one had gone before. And because when you travel the best thing to do is to travel light, they got rid of whatever they could, minimizing weight, drag, structural complexity and cost.

I love these machines and the people that created and flew them; they represent for me the epitome of “think different”.

And here we have a model that depicts one of Rene Arnoux’s creations: “Le Stablavion”, something like a tailless plane in pusher configuration with a somewhat flat wing airfoil.

Considering that this was 1912, and that this and other similar machines built by the same creator actually flew, I think Rene Arnoux deserves a not always recognized prominent place as a pioneer of this (then and now) innovative configuration.

For the curious and adventurous modeler here is a link to a site with very good information:


The model as you can see is simple enough to tempt anyone to also go “beyond” and experience the delights and challenges of scratch building.

If you are one of those that like racers, give a look to the Arnoux “Simplex”, a later and much evolved design. You won’t be disappointed.



*I would very much like to recognize the help that Jim Schubert and other wonderful members of the Wings of Peace forum provided for this and other projects. Sincere thanks to all of them


 The airfoil was indeed "flat", no curves, just angles surfaces:






























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