Pilot Projects | Dynamic Balsa

Skyraider Cockpit Kit Installation

cpcc — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 20:52:18 +0000

Project 2

Skyraider Cockpit Kit
Installation by Cadet Dean Di Giorgio

Hi Brian!

Here is proof of your offerings!

I am almost finished and it was not easy to retrofit this in! The end result always matters.

Regards,

Cadet Dean Di Giorgio

P61 Cockpit Kit Installation

cpcc — Wed, 16 Mar 2022 20:39:33 +0000

P61 Cockpit Kit Installation by James Brown

Hi Brian!

First of all, thank you for the seatbacks. As you can see in the included pics I have already used them!

Pics show what I did with your kit and I must say that you have done a great job with it. It’s a very tough bird to work with. All sub assemblies are just resting against each other and won’t be glued in until after I glass the bird and finish it. There are still a few wires, hoses, and doo-hickeys to put in but it is 95% done.

You can see what I did in the sequence shots to open up the interior of the fuse by cutting out cross-members and cutting down bulkhead widths. I became concerned for structure safety as this section takes all of the landing impacts on the nose gear. You can see that I have added hardwood to the ledge of the cockpit, as well as 1/4 square hardwood diagonal braces on the side. I also added a hardwood 1/4 x 1/2 frame back from the gear rails to the rear bulkhead. Then I added a 1/8″ ply floor. Some of this squeezed the overall width down about 1/2″. It’s obvious how much the gear assembly and retract cylinder pushed into the pilot’s location. (Need to find a very bow-legged pilot to wrap his legs around the gearbox to get at the rudder-pedal!) I had to move the dash off-center a little to save all of the instruments and then shaved down the left side of the dash to fit. I haven’t finished the dash hood yet or fit it to the windshield – but I’ll do that when I complete it. The gun-sight is done but doesn’t show in the pics – yet! The extra “dial” in the top center of the dash is the pneumatic landing gear’s pressure indicator: seemed to be a good place to put it and I’ll be able to see the graduated pressure piston sticking out through the windows.

Have a good one and thanks again.

Jim Brown, jlbsur@earthlink.net

Hurricane Cockpit with Sailor Malan Pilot

cpcc — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 20:48:33 +0000

Project 3

Hurricane Cockpit with Sailor Malan Pilot by Paul Buckrell

Attached are some photos of Brian’s cockpit and Lyle’s Sailor Malan pilot installed in my Hurricane. I’ve been working on this off and on for about three weeks since getting home from the USA and am pleased with the result. The camera isn’t kind in close up sometimes.

The reference photos I have of the Hurricane interior have all the tubing in British cockpit interior green (Humbrol matt 78) so I went that way rather than painting the tubing silver. I weathered some surfaces with silver paint to simulate scuffing and dirtied up the interior using Dark Dirt Promodeller wash.

The instruments in the front panel are not the one’s provided by Brian, they had been created in CorelDraw by a friend of mine for his Spitfire and I just resized and repositioned them for my project. The compass in particular is the British type.

You can see that I installed Mick Reeves’ brass canopy rails. They are glued to the top lip of the cockpit with JB Weld because if I had put them beneath the lip the canopy was too short. This way the canopy fits just right for the 2mm screws in the canopy to engage in the rails.

With the cockpit installed I can now press ahead and install the Sullivan Gold N Rods for pull-pull rudder control and position the servo for the tail wheel control. I hope I never have to access the elevator servo because it is behind the pilot seat connected to an 8mm OD carbon fiber tube back to the elevator horn that is inside the fin post. Let’s hope JR reliability holds true.

Regards

Paul Buckrell