Olympia 2b 1/3 scale**

[Peter Balcombe]

3D printed set supports have now been replaced by laser cut ply ones, plus tabbed spacers & the assembled unit screwed down onto front & rear plates mounted between the tops of the keel pieces just behind F3 & F5.
The seat pan has then been screwed onto the upper support cross pieces, so if the pilot is secured to this then he isn’t going anywhere
The seat rear has not yet been fitted, but can either be a laser cut curved ply back or a simple flat plate - either can be mounted via the seat support rear uprights to suit the chosen full size arrangement.

As mentioned before, a control stick can be mounted (as per full size) on the sloping topped area of seat support frame at the front of the seat pan.

[Cliff Evans]

A nice little bit of detail to add to the cockpit of the Oly. Made to scale.

[Peter Balcombe]

With covering completed, it’s time for another assembly check
JG’s tip about initially attaching the Ceconite to the panel edges with Covergrip helped a lot

Just the canopy ‘ears’ & wing centre cover to make/fit before she goes off to the paint shop.

[Peter Balcombe]

I had forgotten all about the tailplane/fin shroud, so this has now been fashioned from block balsa. It locates under the fin using a rear pin into the lower fin structure, plus a small magnet under the front which hopefully is attracted to the forward fixing bolt head.

The canopy ears shroud has been sprayed to match the canopy frame & tack glued to the canopy ‘ears’ with wings assembled. Once the tack glue had been given time to set, the wings were carefully slid off the joiners & the canopy removed to reinforce the shroud attachment. A bead of canopy glue will be carefully added later to seal the shroud to the canopy
Hopefully, the completed canopy can still be fitted in place when tried with the wings assembled

[Alex Tankink]

A nice little bit of detail to add to the cockpit of the Oly. Made to scale.

20210817_232338.jpg

That calculator is a fantastic bit of detail!!

How did you build it?

I hope one day I can put together a cockpit with this kind of detail

[Peter Balcombe]

The line between canopy ‘ears’ & glazing has now been sealed with canopy glue & the rear internal part of the canopy frame carefully removed (else it will be in the way when the pilot is in place).
The rear canopy frame location pins have been left in place to ensure that the canopy rear sides are located in the absence of any internal cross member.
Another check assembly shows that all is well & the canopy fits snugly.

Completed canopy

With the the canopy ears now fitted & the canopy on the assembled model, the wing centre cover has been initially fitted using 2 small screws at the front & a hand formed U section aluminium rear retainer bent up from very thin aluminium sheet.
The front cover screw holes have since been slotted to allow the plate to be slipped over fixed screws & slid back slightly into place. I will now fit a couple magnets along the centreline working back towards the TE in order to ensure that the 0.4mm ply cover sits down onto the wing upper surface along its length. The cover magnets will mate with others fitted on cross-members between the fuselage root ribs at appropriate points.
The aluminium TE cover is a push fit & will probably be retained with a tension spring/elastic band attached to the rearmost cover magnet cross-member.

Wing & TE centre covers

Canopy & cover fitted

[Max Wright]

Nice, Peter.

Still watching.

[Peter Balcombe]

Last post prior to painting

Wing cover TE U bracket fitted with an M2 threaded rod ‘U’ to provide scale-ish rear fixings (Wing cover should finish just short of the TE bracket, with 2 threaded rods attached to rear of bracket, with wing nuts used to tension the cover).
The model TE bracket clips over the wing TE and is tensioned by the 2 springs attached to the rear of the rear incidence rod former. This avoids having to fit small nuts during rigging, plus the paint is likely to stay on a bit longer.
The use of a small cup hook for forward attachment allows the arrangement to be removed if needed.

Wing cover TE bracket attachment

Meanwhile, the pilot seat back has been fitted, comprising of a small horizontal piece behind the seat pan & 2 upper side plates which extend to the fuselage side skins. (I’ve made all parts removeable in order to be able to get at the seat frame fixings)

Seat rear plates

The model former locations are not quite as per the full size, so slots had to be cut in the seat upper side plates to allow these to reach the fuselage skins.
A picture of a full size arrangement shows the similarities, although I have omitted the additional slot for airbrake cables on the Port upper side plate. This photo shows a rectangular headrest, whilst VV400 sports a circular version.
At 1/3 scale, the headrest is a 50mm diameter domed cushion mounted on the front of a short 50mm diameter pillar, like the one shown.

Full size seat rear

Headrest style

[VinceC]

Nice work Peter on the small detail. This is going to be a stunning model

[Max Wright]

Nice work Peter on the small detail. This is going to be a stunning model

+1