Fleet Fawn

Fleet Fawn
Fleet Fawn Mk I
Role	Trainer
Manufacturer	Fleet Aircraft
Designer	Reuben H. Fleet
First flight	27 June 1930 (Model 2 prototype)
Introduction	1931
Retired	1947
Status	Retired
Primary users	Royal Canadian Air Force Department of National Defence (Canada)
Produced	1931- 1938
Number built	71 (Fleet Model 2, Fleet Model 7)

In the 1930s, Fleet Aircraft manufactured a series of single-engined, two-seat training aircraft, based on US designs. The Fleet Model 7B and Model 7C, known respectively as Fawn I and Fawn II were purchased by the RCAF as primary trainers. After years of reliable service, many were available for use in the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan during the Second World War while others remained as station "hacks."

As a subsidiary of Consolidated Aircraft set up in 1928, Fleet Aircraft had factories at Buffalo, NY, and across the border at Fort Erie, Ontario. The Canadian company produced a series of single-engined, two-seat training aircraft, based on US designs but including variants adapted specifically to Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) needs.

The Fleet Model 7 began as an American design, the Model 2, originally designed by Consolidated. Besides two prototypes imported from the US, a total of seven Fleet Model 2 trainers were built in Canada for civilian operators.

Derived from earlier Fleet Model 2, the Model 7 featured an aircraft structure consisting of a fabric-covered, welded-steel fuselage with metal panels forward of the wooden cockpits. It had steel-tube faring formers and wooden stringers. The wings were single bay of equal spans and wire braced. The upper wing was made in one piece and constructed with two solid Spruce spars. Ailerons were found only on the bottom wings. Stamped aluminium alloy ribs were used to construct the wings and steel-tube compression struts were at the interplane and centre section of the wings. Interlaced between the wings were streamlined landing and flying wires. Except for a broader chord tail-fin introduced after the first production series, while retaining the original rudder of the Model 2, the Model 7 was superficially identical to its earlier predecessor.

A variety of equipment could be fitted to the Canadian variant including optional wheel brakes, a tail skid or tail wheel arrangement, a fuselage belly tank and a fixed cockpit enclosure or "coupe top" with hinged sides. During the late 1930s, a sliding cockpit enclosure became standard equipment of all RCAF Fawns. The aircraft could also be configured to use skis, floats or wheels. The main landing gear's radius rods (the members joining the inner ends of the wheel axles to each opposing corner of the fuselage) on the Models 2 and 7 were notable for having the one coming from the left wheel "looped", with an open oval piece near its middle, so the one from the right mainwheel could pass right through it.

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