Design and Development
The Avro 581 Avian prototype was designed and built to compete in the Lympne light aircraft trials at Lympne Aerodrome in September 1926. Its wooden fuselage was based on that of the Avro 576 autogyro, but it was fitted with conventional biplane wings and powered by a 70 hp (50 kW) Armstrong Siddeley Genet engine. It performed well at the trials, but it was eliminated due to engine failure.
In early 1927 it was re-engined with an 85 hp (63 kW) ADC Cirrus engine as the Type 581A and sold to Bert Hinkler. After further modifications to wings and undercarriage as the Avro 581E, Hinkler used it for a series of long-distance flights, culminating in a 15½-day solo flight from Croydon, UK to Darwin, Australia. In 1998 Lang Kidby recreated this flight in a 1927 Type 594 Avian VH-UFZ (ex G-AUFZ)
Production aircraft were designated Type 594 and were built in a number of versions, mainly powered by Cirrus engines. A version with a welded steel tube fuselage was produced in 1929 as the Avro 616 Avian IVM to meet overseas requirements for an easier-to-repair structure. This version was built in the largest numbers, with approximately 190 built
Read more about this topic: Avro Avian
Famous quotes containing the words design and/or development:
“I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either—and not polished!
Let it be weathered—like a farm wagon—”
—William Carlos Williams (1883–1963)
“Sleep hath its own world,
And a wide realm of wild reality.
And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)