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The Avro 508 was a two seat reconnaissance aircraft built for the RFC in December 1913 but that didn’t enter production.
The Avro 508 was a twin boom three bay biplane, similar in design to other early RFC aircraft such as the RAF F.E.2. The crew of two and the engine were all located in a sizable central nacelle. The observer was in the nose, with the pilot behind him. The oil and fuel tanks were next, with the 80hp Gnome rotary engine at the rear. It used a standard Avro cowling for the rear facing engine. The picture often used of the Avro 508 at the Olympia Aero Show of March 1914 is somewhat misleading. The aircraft appears to be a conventional tractor biplane, but that is because the cowling automatically makes one thing the engine is at the front and the shape of the fuselage looks very much like a standard Avro fuselage installed backwards. However the metal struts of the twin booms can be seen heading back past the engine, so the aircraft is positioned with the nose at the left.
The twin booms were made up of a framework of steel tubes with spruce struts. These joined at the end to carry the single rudder and tail. The 508 had an unusually large central section, with wing panels similar to those on the Avro 503 starting outside the first pair of struts. It used ailerons and was the first Avro aircraft to have the aileron cables inside the wing leading edge running over buried pulleys.
The Avro 508 wasn’t accepted for the RFC. Only one prototype was made, and it only appeared twice. It was displayed at Belle Vue Gardens, Manchester, on 1-3 January 1914 without its covering and then completed at the Olympia Aero Show in London on 15-26 March 1914.
Engine: Gnome rotary
Power: 80hp
Crew: 2
Span: 44ft 0in
Length: 26ft 9in
Height: 10ft 0in
Tare weight: 1,000lb
Maximum take-off weight:
Max speed: 65mph
Endurance: 4.5 hours