How To: Build and Detail a Scale Cockpit
FITTING OUT A MUSTANG PILOT’S WORK SPACE
Fitting out a Mustang pilot’s work space
When you build a scale RC model airplane, everyone wants to take a look inside your model’s cockpit. Yet most casual modelers neglect this area, thinking it’s too much work or they don’t have the skills. This article will show how I go about building a scale cockpit in a way that makes all the scale bits accessible. Making a cockpit look more realistic elevates the scale model’s whole appearance, and if all the cockpit items are easily accessible, that makes servicing your model more convenient. For this article, I will be adding cockpit details to my 1/5-scale P-51A Mustang that I built from Jerry Bates plans.
The Scale Illusion
Before digging into the building of cockpits, let me clarify a few things. The first and most important thing to remember is to have fun. This is a hobby, and everyone experiences it differently. If you want to go hog-wild and replicate your model’s full-scale cockpit, including every wire, hydraulic line, and former, then go for it. On the other hand, if you’d rather add only a few items, then by all means do that. The point here is that there is no law saying how much detail must be added to a cockpit. When it comes to scale competition, the interior cockpit details aren’t even scored. The details are in there because you want to include them. Anything from a complete museum-quality treatment to just the bare bones is up to you. My friend and scale guru Dave Platt says, “Building a cockpit is more about creating the illusion of a cockpit than getting it 100 percent right.” What that means is that sometimes scale modelers have to take liberties because we might not have the necessary photos and documentation that show everything in the pilot’s main office. There is a lot going on inside the cockpit, so it is important to include enough detail so that it rewards the interested eye.
Saving Weight
Detail does not have to be heavy. One thing I hear from other builders is that including all those scale details adds a lot of weight. This can be true, but with a little thought and effort, you can cut down on weight gain by being conscientious while selecting materials. Being thoughtful of the weight of every item you add to your model should become second nature if you wish to improve your skills as a scale modeler and will keep your model from turning into a heavy hangar queen.