Avimeta 88

Flight, December 1926

The Paris Aero Show 1926

AVIMETA

   THE Societe pour la Construction d’Avions Meiallique "Avimeta," with offices in Paris and Works in Courbevoie (Seine), is the outgrowth of the former Aeronautical Department of the Schneider-Creusot armament firm, in which Captain Georges Lepere and M. Andre Lesage are associated as before.
   The new firm exhibits at the Salon its AVM 88 two-seater reconnaissance-fighter, fitted with a 595 h.p. Hispano-Suiza engine. This is a strut-braced semi-cantilever monoplane, which incorporates an excellent streamline and is entirely built of the Schneider light alloy Alferium. The wing spars are lattice girders. The fuselage is of square cross section with rounded corners, and is built up on four longerons and a number of formers which are braced by a trellis work. Both wings and fuselage are covered with sheet Alferium, which is riveted to the framing and is externally ribbed for local stiffness.
   The undercarriage consists of two independent, faired sheet metal frames, with no axle between them, which carry each a wheel sprung by rubber chords housed inside the body of the wheel.
   The petrol tank, which has a capacity of 420 litres, is of the S.E.M.A.P.E. crash-proof type and can be jettisoned in flight. The oil tank has a capacity of 40 litres.
   The armament consists of two synchronised guns, two wing guns and two flexible guns on a ring mount. Each gun is provided with 500 rounds of ammunition.
   Specification.- Engine: 500 h.p. Hispano-Suiza. Span: 17-00m. Length: 9-76m. Height: 3-55 m. Wing area: 40 sq. m. Weight, empty: 1,550 kgs. Fuel load: 310 kgs. Useful load: 540 kgs. Weight, loaded: 2,400 kgs. Maximum speed, sea level: 240 km.p.h. Speed at 5,000 m.: 220 km.p.h. Climb to 5,000 m.: 16 mins. Ceiling: 7,500 m. Safety factor: 12.

   THE parasol monoplane exhibited by the Avimeta Co., which is a subsidiary company of the famous Schneider-Creusot armament firm, is built throughout of the light alloy known as Alferium. It may be recollected that at the last Paris Aero Show two years ago, the Schneider firm exhibited a twin-engined twin fuselage machine of very unorthodox design, which was also built mainly of this material. In this year's machine, the A.V.M. 88, the metal has been employed in a slightly different manner, while the general design of the machine as an aeroplane follows that which seems to be becoming increasingly popular in France, i.e., the parasol monoplane. That the machine is efficient aerodynamically appears probable, although it might be expected that the large cutout in the trailing edge above the fuselage may somewhat seriously affect the air flow and thus to some extent at any rate detract from what would doubtless be a very efficient monoplane wing. The wing bracing does not impress one as being any too good, and is of a type almost identical with that employed on the ill-fated Peyret monoplane on which Maneyrol was killed at Itford, with long lift struts sloping out at a fairly flat angle and steadied in their middle by shorter struts to the wing spars. On the other hand the main lift struts are certainly of ample cross section, so that possibly the wing structure is stronger in down loads than might at first be supposed.
   The undercarriage is of the divided type in which each wheel is carried independently of the other on a species of trouser leg. The metal covering of this machine is lightly corrugated at intervals of 4 in. or so, the radius of the corrugations being approximately a quarter of an inch, and the corrugations running in a fore and aft direction. According to British ideas the rudder appears distinctly small for a comparatively large machine, but should it be found to be inadequate it is of course a comparatively easy matter to remedy this defect, and the machine otherwise seems to have distinct possibilities as a high performance two-seater fighter.