Pitts Pedal Plane

Nearing completion of Pitts Pedal Plane

admin — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 00:19:31 +0000

The Pitts Pedal plane that I’ve been working on for a year and half is nearing completion. I just need to paint the wheel pants and I’ll be done! My Dad came out and we ended up working on painting the airplane. He helped me tape off the hardest part, and we got almost all the final painting done using a nice inexpensive sprayer from Harbor Freight.

I need to paint the wheel pants and add the pedals

Updated Photo. Almost done!

Not my plane, but what is should look like

Here are the wheel pants after being carved and sanded...awaiting paint.

Vacation projects

admin — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 04:05:27 +0000

Looking more like an airplane

Pedal plane coming along

The control linkage soon to be attached.

The landing gear legs were installed today.

Putting the Empenage/tail together

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:51:37 +0000

If only real airplanes could have a tail that goes together this easy. The rudder and elevator mate together for a perfect fit. Just glue, and be sure that both items are square at a 90 deg. angle.

Keep the Rudder at a 90 deg. angle to the elevator

Misc. items to finish

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:46:02 +0000

The plans call for a few small pieces that are quick and easy to do. I’ll list a few here.

The control linkage is made up of small electrical conduit pieces that we smash in the bench vice. My cheap bench vice (from Harbor Freight) is a little small of the task.

A few places call for welding. Here I'm welding the bell crank for the control linkage.

A little bit of time is spent looking over the plans. Here I'm looking over making the control linkage.

Constructing the nose plate starts with 2 1x10 pieces of pine that are laminated together.

Bending the fuselage sides

admin — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:21:00 +0000

One of the required tasks for construction of this pedal plane, is the job of bending each of the fuselage sides. This is needed so that the tail comes together smoothly to a triangle type point.

The fuselage side starts straight of course. But soon will bend. You start by soaking the area of the rear "dado" on both sides before placing it on the jig.

The next step is repeated steaming of the fuselage side. This is done by placing a soaked rag over the bend point and using an Iron with the thermostat turned up to "steam" and continually running it over the rag. KEEP THE RAG WET!!

Don't force the bend. It may seem that little is happening at first. But with the minimal weight of a gallon paint can and continually steaming, it will start coming down after 10-15 minutes.

See! It's getting closer. Just keep that Iron steaming the wet rag over the wood. Almost there!

Finally bent right to the table top. It took about 20 minutes of steaming.

The simple bending jig works just great.

The last step is to run the hot iron over the fuselage for about 2 minutes to dry out the board a bit by sucking out some of that water that we soaked in.

When you are all done, just leave it in the jig over night to dry. Then do the second side.

2nd Fuselage Dry Fit

admin — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:55:24 +0000

It wasn’t long before Michael had some plane parts pushed together to resemble what is soon to come. In these photos we actually had the “dado” cuts already made on the fuselage. This meant that the backrest, firewall, and instrument panel could actually ‘slide into place.’ Our next step is to bend the fuselage sides and actually start gluing pieces together.

First Fuselage Dry Fit

admin — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:21:06 +0000

Today I did the first very simply dry fit. Most of the other pieces have just been cut out and haven’t been sanded down to the line. I had just made the “dado” cuts into the nose plate so the fuselage sides could be held together for a moment. I couldn’t help but throw on a few other pieces

Tracing and cutting out pieces

admin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 04:13:03 +0000

Fabricating Tailwheel

admin — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 03:49:18 +0000

The tailwheel requires a little bit of basic cutting and re-drilling.

Other Pitts Planes

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 05:34:17 +0000

Here are a few pictures I have snagged off of the web from various places. Their owners/builders are unknown. If anyone knows the identies and wants to give credit, please tell me.

Builder Unknown

Red Pitts Pedal Biplane