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What was made with wood on the LA-7


Vitor Costa

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Hello, Vitor

Wings were made of wood apart from: metal spar, leading edge slats, flaps, main undercarriage, ailerons with fabric covering, trim tabs, various service panels on wings' lower surface and metal strip, covering wing outer surfaces and central wing joint just outside undercarriage. Fuselage behind the cockpit and tail apart from: radio doors, tail undercarriage, metal construction control surfaces with fabric covering, trim tabs and radiator.

Check also this web page for cutaway drawings and description. Cheers

Jure

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1 hour ago, Jure Miljevic said:

Hello, Vitor

Wings were made of wood apart from: metal spar, leading edge slats, flaps, main undercarriage, ailerons with fabric covering, trim tabs, various service panels on wings' lower surface and metal strip, covering wing outer surfaces and central wing joint just outside undercarriage. Fuselage behind the cockpit and tail apart from: radio doors, tail undercarriage, metal construction control surfaces with fabric covering, trim tabs and radiator.

Check also this web page for cutaway drawings and description. Cheers

Jure

Jure, very detailed but you have forgot to add - I supouse that engine was all metal ;) 

Cheers

J-W

 

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1 hour ago, Jure Miljevic said:

Hello, Vitor

Wings were made of wood apart from: metal spar, leading edge slats, flaps, main undercarriage, ailerons with fabric covering, trim tabs, various service panels on wings' lower surface and metal strip, covering wing outer surfaces and central wing joint just outside undercarriage. Fuselage behind the cockpit and tail apart from: radio doors, tail undercarriage, metal construction control surfaces with fabric covering, trim tabs and radiator.

Check also this web page for cutaway drawings and description. Cheers

Jure

Hello Jure

 

Thank you very much! It couldn't be better. Incredible how a machine could be so effective using so much wood. 

This helped me a lot, thank you once more :-)

 

Cheers

 

Vitor Costa

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very detailed but you have forgot to add - I suppose that engine was all metal

 

And the pilots were men of steel!

 

From somewhere (book? internet?) I copied this description of Russian construction materials.

Delta Drevesina- - a wood-plastic material used for heavier elements, wing spars and such like. It consisted of carefully selected sections of spruce impregnated with a complex phenol-formaldehyde resin and cured under pressure in a kiln.
Shpon-- a skinning material of such strength that the resulting structures were usually of monocoque design. Shpon was made by laying cross-grained veneers of birch strip impregnated with resin over a thin sheet of Bakelite on one or both sides. The laminate was then cured under heat and pressure.

Later La-9 and La-11 fighters employed much more metal in their structure, sacrificing some of the manoeuverability of their predecessors.

 

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2 hours ago, Vitor Costa said:

Incredible how a machine could be so effective using so much wood. 

 

All wartime Russian fighter aircraft used significant amounts of laminated or otherwise processed wood in their wing and fuselage construction, in the forms detailed by Ed Russell. And don't forget the DeHavilland Mosquito!

 

John

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3 hours ago, Ed Russell said:

 

 

Later La-9 and La-11 fighters employed much more metal in their structure, sacrificing some of the manoeuverability of their predecessors.

 

It's worth pointing out the non-obvious truth that metal aircraft structures are lighter then wooden ones, because the variable and unpredictable nature of wood means that greater thicknesses are required than ideally necessary.  Which is a benefit of using resin-impregnated wood, as its properties are more predictable.  However, given the complete change of wing design on the La-9 and 11, I suspect that this had rather more effect on their manoeuvrability than a few kilograms change in the structure.

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5 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

 However, given the complete change of wing design on the La-9 and 11, I suspect that this had rather more effect on their manoeuvrability than a few kilograms change in the structure.

Exactly - La-9 and -11 had laminar-flow wings (the Russians had received a dozen of Allison-Mustangs and 2000+ P-63 Kingcobras during the war :)) that usually mean reduced manoeuvrability...

Cheers

Michael

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