Building a Nieuport 11...

[Frank Giger]

Well, I did some of that today in a big way!

Let's build some rudder pedals!

I went with the pedals as per the plans versus a bar for a couple reasons - first, it's simpler.

But more importantly, they're humongerous pedals, and the only real Near Ground Loop I had was because my foot slipped off the Champ's pedals during a nasty gust just as I set down. I recovered it and didn't touch a wing to the ground, but there's no way that'll happen with these suckers.

Here's all the stuff one needs to make the pedals. The hammer isn't really needed, I just like having it handy to help with equipment attitude.

In the plans and in some kits there are two big holes cut out into the pedals, but mine didn't have them and I don't want them. I like to slide my whole foot on the floor to work the rudder, and don't want anything hanging it.



It's simplicity itself - five little tubes riveted to the sheet; four around the edges and one in the center. So I split the middle and drew a line with a pencil for that center tube. I even drilled the holes in the sheet first and then centered the tube on them to make sure I was on the mark.



Ready to close up the second rudder! Measuring the center tube was good business - I just made a pencil mark and hit it without pulling a rivet!



The important thing to remember was to drill and mount the connecting gusset for the rudder cable BEFORE putting on the other side!





Two rudder pedals done. The hinges that Robert included were pretty much standard door hinges, and they got wet during one of the times the roof to the wonder tent was ripped in two during a storm. They became two hunks of rust.

I got some beefy piano hinges, trimmed to length, and used them instead.

[Frank Giger]

The space between the rudder cables and the aileron control rods is tight - since the rods tend to rotate a bit and the pedals themselves are a bit off the wall of the fuselage the chance of wire rubbing tube is about 100 percent unless something is done about it.

This is the solution that Jeff Sikes used on his N11, based on input from Mr. Baslee. I like it because it's simple and it works! The cable moves freely in the tubing, and the aileron control rod smoothly moves against the plastic around the cable. I'm sure eventually they'll conspire to wear through the sheath, but it's right there in the cockpit for visual inspection and can be repaired easily.



What I don't like about it is that it looks a bit too backyard engineered for my liking and has cable rubbing sheathing from the start, shortening its lifespan. I went in a little different direction on the same technique.

First, I acquired some copper pipe mounts. I then put a thick coat of that liquid rubber stuff on the insides. I did the same for the conduit mounts that hold my flooring on, and when I pulled a couple off to inspect when I replaced the flooring it was intact (after being on for a year and in all manner of weather!). The fuselage tubing is also painted, so the making of an unintentional battery isn't going to happen here. The tops were primed and then painted because I'm crazy that way.



I put some nylon spacers over the ends of the tubing, securing them with super glue, and mounted them to the fuselage with the conduit mounts - the rear one is just past the back of the seat, and there's one midpoint between the ends just behind where the aileron rod meets it.

It's a slight brush on the plastic tube through the controls - probably wouldn't even hit the wire if all I had was the nylon guides at front and back - but I like the insurance.

There's a lot going on in this pic:

1) You can see the tube mounted and see how the wire goes through it, following the natural line of the cable.

2) You can see the square tube I put in for the elevator control.

3) The pedal is mounted to the floor plate. This is actually version one, since I measured placement without help, made a line for where it should go, and then put the rear of the hinge on it. Yep, it's about four inches too far back from the firewall for comfort. I could have left it if I wanted to fly with my knees bent, but too much time running (and a few injuries) in my youth would have me crying after about an hour in that position. I moved them using some tangs I made, and I'll show some pics of that tomorrow - I got into work mode and forgot to take pictures!
4) Spot the "well there's your problem" issue when I found that there wasn't any play in the cable back to the rudder all of a sudden after re-assembly. I can't remember why I took it off and had to put it back on, but it was so funny to realize what I had done that I couldn't resist taking a picture.



Here's the back end - I used some tangs and a bolt for the rudder end, stealing from what I saw at Gardner. This is a treat for disconnecting it.

What isn't shown is the swag thingie and a delron nylon spacer that's on that wire, the latter of which is needed for clearing the fuselage cleanly (it's actually shown, just covered in duct tape as temporary fixture). The former is for the tailwheel, which I'm going to just tag into the rudder cable.



So rudder pedals and cables in. Man, talk about your serious sitting in the airplane, making noises, and doing some imaginary touch and goes.

Tomorrow I'll fix the tailwheel to the cables, put in some rudder stops, and contemplate taking it all apart. Maybe I'll leave it together until I mount the firewall (which is next after this).
I'll also take some better pics of the rudder cable sheathing and show how I moved the rudder pedals towards the firewall.

[Frank Giger]

Happy 4th of July, y'all...

Just a little work today to finish up the tailwheel cables, then it's time to spend some time with the wife and son....kase spetzle for lunch, coffee cake, and then fireworks tonight.

Not to say it's been hot working on the plane, but the wife thought I got white paint on the hat they gave me for donating blood. Nope, that's salt, all the way at the top of the hat and on the bottom of the brim.



This morning was relatively cool (mid 80's), and my lizard friend came out to inspect my work. He seemed to be okay with it.



On the tail wheel itself I used super magic shackles. I know they're super magic because they cost fifteen bucks a pop at B&B - I'd hate to think what they'd cost from Aircraft Spruce.



Here's the solution to the tail wheel cables not working at all with the fuselage - there wasn't a place to mount them that wouldn't rub. Because I know there's going to be some friction, that's actually two nylon spacers, with an inner one superglued to an outer one. It's a half inch of nylon that the cable will have to saw through before hitting aluminum.



Here's a better picture of the rudder pedal set up:

First, one can see the nylon/tube sleeve for the cable inside the cockpit fully, including how it looks on the far side.

Second, I had to move the pedals forward (towards the firewall), so I whipped up some aluminum tangs and ran them from the new position to the turnbuckle. This allowed me to also increase the resting angle of the pedals.

The distance is just right for me to either slide my heel forward to the base of the pedal and work my foot from the ankle, or, as I prefer, to put the balls of my feet on the pedals and slide my heels on the plate.



I actually managed to tie in the tail wheel with both the rudder and the wheel pointed in the same direction, which pleased me greatly. I used bungee cords to hold the pedals forward with tension on both sides of the rudder, making sure that they were equal and the rudder straight (neutral position). Then did the same with the wheel, locked down the wires with some vice grips, and swagged them about fifteen inches behind where that back nylon spacer is behind the seat.

I don't have a clue on how to put in the rudder stops. It may boil down to a block of wood bolted behind them on the plate.

[Frank Giger]

Hmmm, I'm going to have to pull those rudder pedals out and replace the piano hinges with great big door hinges like what was included in the kit - they're flexing a bit, giving the pedal some twist when it's on the tail wheel. Seems like a bad point of failure in the making

Yesterday I took the wings off as well as the tail feathers, and the vertical stab and the elevator are prepped for cover. I need to back off from the pedals for a bit, as it's starting to piss me off and that's no way to build...and they need covering!

I took Ronny Bar's excellent profile of Count de Plandes Sioyes' Nieuport 11 - I wonder what he would think if he knew that when he landed behind the Hun lines his camouflaged-with-the-torch aircraft would become famous through time - and took samples of the colors at what I thought were representative, made solid sample squares, and printed them with our color printer. I'm off to the paint store later with the wife to match their standard colors against them, as she's better at it than I am.

I want to stay with their colors, as it'll be easier to get more that way if I need. I've had hit and miss luck on scanned colors being replicated. Nice thing about going to a dedicated paint store is that they also keep a record of what one bought by color, and all the colors are mixed by computer operated machines that measure the stuff. The "fill the tube by hand" method at WalMart for pigments is okay for painting a bathroom, but no so much for this by my reckoning.




You'll note there are no roundels on the tops of the wings - in 1915 when the Nieuport 11 was first fielded they only put them on the bottoms in an effort to make their own troops from firing on them as they crossed the lines, particularly when returning from a fight where they were invariably at a much lower altitude than when they started the mission.

His work is outstanding! More of his stuff is here: http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/ga...=2&userid=5391

[planecrazzzy]

That'll be a cool paint job... Don't forget to mount a Machine Gun !!!
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Gotta Fly...
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[Frank Giger]

While I'm not color blind, my wife has a better eye on matching them than I do so I took her with me to the paint store along with a printout of Ronny's profile with some color squares I had sampled from it...so not a lot of excuses around here for not driving on with it!

The numbers of tiny little wrinkles around bends keeps getting smaller and smaller. Neato.



Vertical stab covered, taped, riveted, edge taped, and primed. It actually went quicker than with the rudder. Either I'm getting better at this or the piece was a lot simpler.



The elevator was covered in record time, owing to it being really two pieces with simple curves.



Here's it is covered, waiting for full tension, tapes, etc.



I'll prime it and then join it back with the stab for painting, since the camo pattern flows from one to the other.

This is definitely "thirty foot" covering and painting, though. But I don't care, really, since it looks pretty darned good to me and does the job.

I haven't forgotten that machine gun! It's in a box waiting for finishing touches and installation of the strobe flash unit that will go in the front of it. Our very own rwanttaja made it for me - Ron's a prince that will be unable to pay for a beer around me.

[pittsdriver3]

Are you rib stitching or riveting to attach the fabric to the ribs? Don

[Frank Giger]

Rivets FTW. I splurged and got some of the really flat covering rivets which are the cat's meow. I'm following the standard distances for rib stitching, of course.

[Frank Giger]

My take on CDL is more white than most; figure it's brand new and the dope hasn't had time to darken up too much, okay.



Elevator ready for tapes. Worst part of covering, IMHO.



With the elevator primed, it was time to put them together on the table.



Here's how we did on color matching versus the printout of Ronny's profile. The brown is a little darker, owing to what we think is both the picture's simulated shine and the fact it came from a printer. The other two are spot on, though.



A day later of putting down a thin layer, waiting, putting down another, etc., followed by some fussy painting using tape and brushes...



And it was ready for edging around the sides in some nice Horizon Blue.



As I said before, whomever came up with the bright idea to edge around in blue was either working for the Germans or SPAD; what a complete pain in the rear. Lots of fiddling with the edges with the corner of a foam brush re-working paint bleed - and I was using the "delicate" surface Frog tape.

[Frank Giger]

I couldn't resist and put the tail feathers on the plane to see how it looked!



The wife came out to see (okay, I dragged her into the back yard) and said it looked first rate.



I can't say I'm displeased with the results. There's a lot of little things here and there that only I'll see, but that's to be expected on stuff like this, and I had to remind myself that at 60 MPH from 1,000 feet it'll look even better to everyone else.

Covering will get put on hold - I've still got some structural stuff to do, like once again mucking with the rudder pedals, some work on the wings, and the panel/sheeting.