Tanner-Fairey TF2 Monoplane, ca. 1920

[steelpillow]

After WWI, young Ben Tanner was working for Richard Fairey - a man he had met while, as a child, he had been involved with JW Dunne at Eastchurch. He foresaw the need for new civilian types that were easier to fly than the steeds of his wartime heroes (and he was far from the only one). Naturally, he followed the Dunne formula for a stable yet tailless swept wing. Fairey of course had suffered severe cutbacks in orders, though a reasonable cash pile from his wartime sales. Loath to sack most of his workforce, he set some to helping the young Tanner.

The first of these, the TF 1, was to be a single-seat light runabout, suitable for sports, liaison, mail duties and the like. Its development would be stymied by the lack of a suitable engine (a mistake Geoffrey de Havilland would not make with his Moth a few years later). I have yet to dig through the archives to discover if it was actually built or even flown.

Next up, the TF 2. Tanner's idea was to take the same load as a luxury motor car. You could drive to the airfield, decamp to the aeroplane, and fly to your destination. It was to carry 4/5 passengers and generous luggage for the day, in a cabin extending back behind the pilot's seat. The prototype was built with 4 passenger seats, leaving space for a couple of mail bags for luck.
Twin engines were to rotate in opposite directions, avoiding torque effects for the inexperienced or casual pilot, and to this end Tanner stumbled on a coupe of old Rolls-Royce Falcons and propellers left over from the cancelled Fairey F.2 of 1917, and configured to rotate in opposite directions (technically, the Falcon had a thrust bearing at each end and to rotate one in the opposite direction you just had to turn it round and stick an opposite-handed propeller on). Delivering 190 hp each, they should still give a useful performance. The most expensive part of the plane, for free! In the pile of bits below, one engine fairing shows the sump sticking out, and the other the slot cut for the exhaust ports. Originally envisaged as a pusher type (the Falcon could be used as pusher or tractor, simply by swapping the props over and sticking them on the other end), he found the engines would be so far forward but the props so far back, that the drive shafts would be a real problem. So he switched to a tractor layout (I think, more archive digging to be sure).







The model started life as an Airfix Britten-Norman Islander kit which had lost some bits. The plastic is finely detailed, but unusually hard yet brittle. A real pig to kitbash! White bits are plasticard extras, all too much grey filler where brittle repairs or half-baked ideas went awry.
Fuselage is slightly widened with a central keel (B-N came up with a sneaky trick to make in narrower, which Tanner would not have tried), shortened and remodelled. Lots of nose weight.
Wings are lengthened with card inserts, cut diagonally lengthways and reassembled, to reproduce Dunne's trademark conical camber of leading and trailing edges. These are just armatures, to be covered by ribbed plasticard of my own devising. One day. Less than half a century this time, honest! Only been on the Shelf of Doom for a couple of years since, at last inspired, I swapped it out to finish the Nord Busard superharrier.
Props are from a DH Hornet. Anybody want an otherwise complete kit to build with props "spinning"?
Assembled shots are dry fit + blu-tac, interior yet to be painted. Note small hole in floor behind pilot's seat, this is for a structural post which transfers the fuselage weight to the main spar, is hollow for the control runs, and a handy anchor for the forward luggage/mailbag straps. Rear luggage compartment in tailpiece.

[RAFF-35]

I can't wait to see this one finished! I'd love to own a full size version of this aircraft too.
Did you make the wings entirely from plasticard or are there Islander wings in there somewhere?

[Dizzyfugu]

Cool. 

[Rick Lowe]

Did you make the wings entirely from plasticard or are there Islander wings in there somewhere?

The yellow bits are the Islander wings, with white plastic card inserts.
Likewise the yellow bits of the fuselage are Islander, also.

[stevehed]

Looking good.

[zenrat]

 

[NARSES2]

Looking forward to this one   

[steelpillow]

Compare the underside below with the upper side above and you can see how the upper and lower halves of the Islander moulding are slid along each other to increase the span. Tilted tips cut off, reshaped and back on flat. Engine mountings faired in. Two long diagonal cuts can barely be made out on each wing, where I cut, trimmed, reglued and smoothed to create complex 3D camber and twist. Centre section underneath scratched up to hold it all together.
Please ignore the inserts to pin it back together, where I laminated it wrong and had to straighten it out flat again - corresponds to the patch of filler on the upper side. Elevon cutouts should be deeper once the skin is on, as it is meant to trail back a few more mm.

[PR19_Kit]

That's very clever, I'm most impressed. 

[Rick Lowe]

Yes. And a very good idea to have the inserts at different places on the upper/lower surfaces. 

[frank2056]

Very impressive - at first I thought all the yellow was Tamiya tape!

[NARSES2]

That's very clever, I'm most impressed. 

Totally agree   

[steelpillow]

Cannot claim that much originality. Here is my very close copy (to escape copyright nonsense) of a real-world sketch drawn by JW Dunne himself, probably ca. 1914-16, for a twin-engined bomber or Zeppelin killer, and preserved in the Science Museum archives. All I did was beat his sword into a ploughshare, as the saying goes.

[Wardukw]

Very very cool bud 
I'll bet watching this one