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From: Miloch <Miloch_member@newsguy.com>
Newsgroups: alt.binaries.pictures.aviation
Subject: Avro 504
Date: 17 Apr 2019 06:59:58 -0700
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avro_504
The Avro 504 was a First World War biplane aircraft made by the Avro aircraft
company and under licence by others. Production during the war totalled 8,970
and continued for almost 20 years, making it the most-produced aircraft of any
kind that served in the First World War, in any military capacity, during that
conflict. More than 10,000 were built from 1913 until production ended in 1940.
First flown on 18 September 1913, powered by an 80 hp (60 kW) Gnome Lambda
seven-cylinder rotary engine, the Avro 504 was a development of the earlier Avro
500, designed for training and private flying. It was a two-bay all-wooden
biplane with a square-section fuselage.
Role
Trainer, Fighter, Bomber
Manufacturer
Avro
First flight
18 September 1913
Introduction
1913
Retired
1934
Primary users
Royal Flying Corps
Royal Naval Air Service
Produced
Number built
11,303 including Japanese, Soviet and other foreign production
Small numbers of early aircraft were purchased by the Royal Flying Corps (RFC)
and the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) prior to the start of the First World
War, and were taken to France when the war started. One of the RFC aircraft was
the first British aircraft to be shot down by the Germans, on 22 August 1914.
The pilot was 2nd Lt. Vincent Waterfall and his navigator Lt Charles George
Gordon Bayly (both of 5 Sqn RFC) The RNAS used four 504s to form a special
flight in order to bomb the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshafen on the shores of
Lake Constance. Three set out from Belfort in north-eastern France on 21
November 1914, carrying four 20 lb (9 kg) bombs each. While one aircraft was
shot down, the raid was successful, with several direct hits on the airship
sheds and the destruction of the hydrogen generating plant.
Soon obsolete as a frontline aircraft, it came into its own as a trainer, with
thousands being built during the war, with the major production types being the
504J and the mass production 504K, designed with modified engine bearers to
accommodate a range of engines in order to cope with engine shortages. 8,340
Avro 504s had been produced by the end of 1918.
equip Home Defence squadrons of the RFC, replacing ageing B.E.2cs, which had
poor altitude performance. These aircraft were modified as single-seaters, armed
with a Lewis gun above the wing on a Foster mounting, and powered by 100 hp (75
were issued to eight home defence squadrons in 1918, with 226 still being used
as fighters at the end of the First World War.
Following the end of the war, while the type continued in service as the
standard trainer of the RAF, large numbers of surplus aircraft were available
for sale, both for civil and military use. More than 300 504Ks were placed on
the civil register in Britain. Used for training, pleasure flying, banner towing
and even barnstorming exhibitions (as was ongoing in North America following
World War I with the similar-role, surplus Curtiss JN-4s and Standard J-1s);
civil 504s continued flying in large numbers until well into the 1930s.
The embryonic air service of the Soviet Union, formed just after the First World
War, used both original Avro 504s and their own Avrushka (" Little Avro") copy
of it for primary training as the U-1 in the early 1920s, usually powered by
Russian-made copies of the Gnome Monosoupape rotary engine. This Russian version
of the 504 was replaced by what would become the most produced biplane in all of
aviation history, the Polikarpov Po-2, first known as the U-2 in Soviet service
in the late 1920s.
Specifications (Avro 504K)
General characteristics
Crew: two
Length: 29 ft 5 in (8.97 m)
Wingspan: 36 ft (10.97 m)
Height: 10 ft 5 in (3.18 m)
Empty weight: 1,231 lb (558 kg)
Useful load: 180 lb (82 kg)
Max. takeoff weight: 1,829 lb (830 kg)
Performance
Maximum speed: 90 mph (145 km/h)
Cruise speed: 75 mph (121 km/h)
Range: 250 mi (402 km)
Service ceiling: 16,000 ft (4,876 m)
Rate of climb: 700 ft/min (3.6 m/s)
Power/mass: 0.06 hp/lb (0.099 kW/kg)
Climb to 3,500 ft (1,065 m) in 5 min
Armament
1 fixed .303 Lewis atop upper wing (single-seat night fighter variants)
*
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