Carlson Skunk Works

You just know this has to be good because I am posting again so soon! Today I sat in my airplane and made airplane noises!!! Then my wife climbed in, too.

What this means is that I now have seats in the airplane. Well, a seat actually. I decided to go with a bench seat arrangement. I built some supports to go under the seat and used 3 mm plywood for the seat bottom, then used some 6 mm plywood for the seat back. I will need to get some foam padding and some reasonable upholstery as well.

I also drilled some holes and mounted the rudder pedals, but either I will need to put some serious padding on the seat back, or I will need to move the pedals back about four inches. I really don’t think that my legs will grow any longer, so waiting until I get taller is probably out.

Now for the pictures:

This is how I started the seat. I made four frames to support the seat bottom at the same height as the bottom of the opening in the rear bulkhead. These were 21 inches long. I glued them up and then glued them to a piece of plywood going across the front of the seat bottom. The seat bottom itself is 24 inches wide by the inside width of the fuselage. The seat is notched so that it will fit over the bottom of the rear bulkhead.

There is the seat bottom in place.

And then the seat back in in position.

Here are the rudder pedals.

As long as things were going along quite nicely I decided to drill the holes to mount the fin. However, the fin is too tall to allow me to put the tailwheel on my workbench in the garage, so I can’t get the plane in the garage with the fin in place.

And here is proof that the seat works and is able to support me.

This is a two place airplane after all.