Camel build

Care package arrived from England today. Shown below with a std. 3 1/8" instrument for comparison is an original Sopwith Camel Mk Vb altimeter, original Sopwith 5/17 compass, replica Sopwith airspeed indicator (modern internals) and a Sopwith throttle quadrant.

Rotec R-3600 engine is here!
Will be sending off Rotec tachometer to be refaced as replica

Wicker seat finishing up with leather coaming and cushion

Working on firewall brake pedal brackets and triangular spade stick grip.

It's kinda cool that it will have some original Sopwith Camel pieces.
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tail feathers on
cabanes and upper centersection done
firewall on
aft shaping fairings done

Engine mount done

Will be in Missouri building wings and covering in 2 weeks

Am planning to hit Sun-n-fun, and Oshkosh this year.

 

yeppers...
...still keeping my rocket attack currency on San Geronimo. It is a hoot. You can see the T-28 and the Mondial together in the Forza article this month.

If and when the T-28 is sold, have decided to find 30 acres and have my own WW1 Aerodrome.

 

....it's currently on loan to the Great Pumpkin.

I am going to have to develop a Canadian accent - seems many Camel ace pilots were Canadian!

 

The wicker seat for the plane - although there seems to be variation in photos, this was built close to blueprint measurements. The matching dark brown leather cushion is waiting on a stiff foam.
This time next week the seat will be in the plane.
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Firewall on!
Engine ON!

Building wings through the weekend.

 

Photos this weekend.

 

teaser
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All aircraft grade aluminum, including the spars.

One big thing this trip, expense wise, will be ordering he steel flying wires from Brunton's.
Oh, but how they will sing.

 

yes - the fuselage is std a/c moly steel.

 

Mr Parks

I am having a whopper of a good time. It is primarily being done by a company, Airdrome Aeroplanes, which provided the aircraft to the movies Flyboys and Amelia, as well as a kit producer. I have certainly innundated them with specific requirements, additions and changes to their usual build. They have been quite gracious in basically prototyping the design of a Camel replica with modern safety, useability but replicating the look, feel and experience. They are building the plane from scratch using the well known Replicraft plans of the original.

Although with a steel fuselage and aluminum spars, the plane will be carrying many original Camel parts, such as instruments, controls and other exact replica Sopwith pieces sourced in England such as the throttle quadrant, ASI and flying wires (RAF wires) to name a few.

It will still have all the same dimensions and horsepower, although motive power will be by a small radial engine. It will be a little bit lighter (I hope) to meet requirements to be operated as an LSA.

There will NOT be any permanent avionics. Think handheld radio/GPS on an 'as-needed basis'. It will not have any lights. It will have a starter, although I almost deleted it, so I can operate it by myself.

Compared to other current flying WW1 replicas out there I know about, it will be very much better than most, but not have wood construction as the original.

Hope this helps.

 

While I would have been very happy to have just 2 mag switches, the generator/starter Rotec requires a bit more. Attached is the planned electrical system, whuch I have tried to keep bone simple. One of my favorite things are the combo switch/circuit breakers.
And as you will notice, there are no permanent mounted avionics, rather a 12v outlet. This was a topic of much soul searching, but will be using portable avionics, i.e. handheld comm and gps.

Let me know if there are any ways to do this better.

Thanks

Russ
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James - thanks!
They are using the excat engine I am using on mine, a Rotec 3600!