Cockpit Detail

Re-doing the cockpit floor from Gary Sewall’s drawing was absolutely the right call. The kit’s two-piece wood floor is a common compromise, and it throws everything else off dimensionally. Laser-cutting the new floor to the correct outline and plank layout—and having it drop into the airframe perfectly—is about as satisfying as it gets. Once the floor is corrected, the kit’s diecast bell crank is too thick becomes impossible to ignore as it will not move smoothly. The brass tube for the column not only fixes the scale thickness but will gives a much crisper, more mechanical look, just like the real installation.

Rebuilding the bell crank in brass corrects:

• Correct scale thickness and profile

• Sharper geometry than the diecast part

• Strong enough to actually function if you choose to make it operable

Made the mounting brackets for the floor board as well. The original was bolted to the metal airframe which is exactly what I did on the model with micro bolts.

Picture of the control column deconstruction. 

I cutoff the metal cast control handles and hand carved some out of wood, looks much better but I'm still working on the final version. I want to add the cables etc to the final version.

 

Brass aileron control build which I just copied the kits diecast version but after assembling the control stick I noticed that the bell crank is too large and hits the rudder pedals when they are moved right and left. Will have to redo this part.

  

The original footpads on the floor board where made of aluminum and wood. I took the kits plastic parts and wrapped them in foil wrap, trimmed to up and then painted the edges to look like wood. The overall appearance is much better then trying to paint the aluminum on the part. 

The rudder bar is missing the middle frame work, I will need to create this out of brass

Work on the magneto switch. The piece that came with the kit was not accurate at all so I made one out of brass and styrene.

Installed and ready for the two wires that will run to the engine through the brass tube mounted on the fuselage framing. 

Behind the seat on the Fokker DRI there is a canvas cover installed to prevent items from falling back into the rear of the plane. The kit provided a wood part to represent the canvas, so this will need to be replaced. I ended up purchasing a blank canvas picture frame from an art store and removed the canvas to cut our the part, worked great. I did end up make several patterns to get the shape correct but in the end the effort was worth it. 

Designed my pattern in Adobe Illustrator and printed out the image.

  

I used some low tack glue to attach the part to the canvas so it could be easily removed.

Test fitting my pattern

I needed to make 52 aluminum pieces to represent the eyelets for the rope for attaching the canvas to the metal air frame. I came up with a simple jig that allowed me to cut these out in about 10 minutes.  

I punched holes in the canvas for my aluminum eyelets.

I forgot to take pictures of the final canvas cover but here it is installed in place.