Model Airplane News editor Gerry Yarrish has been working on his latest scale project, a WW I French Nieuport 24 for a little over a year now and he has made a lot of progress lately. A self-designed RC airplane, Gerr’s Nieuport started out as a set of 3-views which he then traced using his CAD program. Once he had the scale outline worked out, he then added all the modeling construction details, printed out the plans and started gluing sticks together. Several posts have been uploading showing Gerry’s workshop project as it went together.
This past weekend, he started working on the cockpit interior adding the details and parts he made from scratch. Everything is scale and sized for his 27.5% scale biplane. So, here’s how it looks today.
The scale pilot seat is removable and it covers the servos which are mounted to the cockpit floor.
Here is the ammo cupboard which is basically in place of a standard instrument panel. Notice the fuel sight gauge in the center.
The headrest padding is made from black polymer clay. If has a leather texture added. Notice the rubber tubing on the front edge of the cockpit. It will be covered with leather shortly!
Above are all the parts for the throttle quadrant. They are made of thin acrylic sheet and laser cut to shape.
Throttle and chokes levers assembled.
All painted and ready to install.
Here are the throttle details and the gascolator installed next to the pilot seat.
The only analogue instrument in the cockpit is the tachometer.
The leather covering for the cockpit edge combing is made of leather. I installed small eyelets (doll-house items), and used a center pumch to flare the back side to form gromments.
Here the leather strip has been glued to the plastic tubing that was glued to the front of the opening. I used contact cement to attach the leather to the model.
Here the stitching thread has been installed.
The front top combing.
Here the stitching has been completed. I drilled through the grommets and threaded the stitching in and out of the holes.
Using a thin aluminum tube, I was able to guide the needle back out of the grommets to complete a stitch between the grommets.
Up next, the machine guns!
Stay tuned
