Scale-Adventure Grumman TBF/TBM Avenger

Avenger? Never heared of!

The Grumman Avenger was built to displace the Douglas TBD Devastator. It first approached on the scene in 1942 and it was rather less successful. It was the biggest warbird driven by only one engine and it went from the smallest carriers of the US in WW II.

It´s fuselage was big enough to offer space for 3 crew members and for one torpedo or several bombs.
Despite 9837 Planes of this type were built it is nearly unknown in Europe. Some of them do exist even today and are still airworthy.

Technical data from the prototype e.g. TBM-3:

Wingspan	52 feet 2 inches
Lenght	40 feet
height	16 feet 5 inches
empty weight	10,843 pounds
maximum weight	18,250 pounds
powerplant	one wright R2600-20 at 1,900 hp
performance	267 mph @ 16,000 feet
service ceiling	23,400 feet
range	1,130 miles
maximum weight	18250 pounds

The modell:

is still at work. It will have a wingspan of 90 inces (which is about 2,30m) and will have a weight of about 25-35 lbs (11,3..15,8 Kg).
A engine like a Zenoah ZG62 will serve the necessary Power (62ccm).

I do my research very carefully. Books from different publishers are in my choice TBM/TBF Avenger, squadron/signal publications inc., ISBN 0-89747-197-0 Wings of Fame, Volume 13, Aerospace publishing Ltd, ISBN 1-86184-025-X TBM/TBF Avenger Units of World War 2, Osprey Aviation, ISBN 1-85532-902-6 and many more other books and magazines that wrote about this plane.
As well as accurate plastic models in 1/48 scale and fotos of the prototype itself. In case of the Avenger I took lots of fotos in Duxford where they have a TBM-3 Avenger in the colours of George Bush Senior´s machine "Ginny". From these fotos I gain many details for the model.
I drew the plan on thick paper. The ribs are painted by CAD to get an accurate design.
A wing has a size of 41.3 inch and a lenght of 20.5 inch I use Clark-Y profile - so it will fly like a big trainer. You can see on the pics the main wheel - 4.7 inch and a wing of the 1/48 model.
Despite of a size of "only" 1/7.15 the fuselage is rather mighty. (you might think what kind of scale is this - but 90inch wingsize is a practical scale to get into my (your?) car! The fuselage ist 23 inch high (including fin) and 8.3 inch wide.
After building the balsa model I divided cowling and fuselage. Then I closed the front of the fuselage.
A water level helped me to get all into the right angles. On the right side you see a premaster from the ball turret. But it will take still a little time until I can deep draw the cover.