The Tale of the Troublesome (Avios) Tucano

Описание: The Avios Tucano is a great flying plane and a pretty unique offering. However, when I got mine I felt there were aspects of its design/construction quality that were worth addressing. In this video I talk through the various issues and modifications I made to hopefully make the plane a little more durable in service. Two modification I didn't show in the video are:
1) Reinforcing the moving elevator tips with carbon fibre strips. These tips are very weak and I've even heard they can break off in flight. I picked up advice on strengthening them from a Youtube video and if I can find it I'll post a link in this description.
2) Removal of unnecessary foam in the fuselage than prevents a 6s lipo from being pushed a bit further back. The plane tends to be nose heavy anyway so every little bit helps here.

P S for anyone curious about the music in the video, its a witty adaption done recently for model flying club. Despite being a huge open area, we get some surprisingly turbulent conditions at times. We are have flocks of sheep and herds of deer to contend with ..... and the hardened droppings are an ever present obstacle for planes taking off and landing. The full song is here:

   • Blowin' In The Wind (at Tatton) - The Knut...  

UPDATE 20-May2-25

Testing the Tucano new nosewheel suspension
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Just a quick follow up to this video that I made about nosewheel mods to the Tucano:

I did first flights with the modified nosewheel today and it proved a complete success. In good conditions, I managed perfect landings (this plane does indeed land beautifully if you just fly it in right). So the landings hardly tested things much. But as I taxied in over the uneven grass and 'obstacles' left by sheep and deer and hardened in the drought, I could see the noseleg happily wobbling fore and aft as the springs soaked up the shock. This can only be good for noseleg longevity and the self tapping screws etc that hold it in place. I did have once big surprise when, after the second perfect landing and as I turned the plane to taxi in, the port main gear collapsed. Turned out the assembly had pulled out cleanly from the wing and, on inspection, was not very well glued in. The starboard main gear had come out like this after the hard landing I did a couple of weeks or so ago. In fairness, it is possible the port gear might have been weakened during the same incident. Anyhoos, it will now be glued back in properly with UHU Por as I did with the starboard gear. And if there was a way to give the main gear some lateral springing then that wouldn't do them any harm (not sure if I'll bother though as really, doing good landings in the first place is the solution and this plane lands beautifully as long as you don't try and land it like a STOL plane but let it land on at the right speed).


Happy Landings All 👍