Nieuport Project Page 2

Here's How We Are Building Our Nieuport 11s, Page 2 -- We Finish The Planning

There's an old carpenter Rule "Measure twice and cut once." The past two months have been spent carefully incorporating ideas other Nieuport builders have used successfully in their aircraft such as enlarging the pilot seating area for bigger people, using chromoly sleeves in certain critical places, planning for a steerable tail wheel (not a tail skid), obtaining the cowls to check for the fit on the plans, and other things before the first piece of aluminum is purchased, cut or bent. That way, we won't have extra pieces we don't need or repeat the mistakes others have had to correct.


Here are two beautiful Nieuport 11 spun aluminum cowls obtained from Dick Hartzler. It looks like an oversize Wok! We're getting three more cowls -- probably the Nieuport 17 ones which have the same diameter but more metal on the side (larger radius).	John visited the EAA Chapter 690 Fall Classic Fly-In October 3, 1998, in Lawrenceville, Georgia, to get ideas from Nieuport 11 builders Steve Ashby and Joel Levine. Here's the front of Steve's Nieuport fuselage.	In Lawrenceville here's a neat seat obtained at Sun and Fun for only $40 by Steve Ashby. Note also the unusual ax handle stick he's going to use.


In Lawrenceville here's the way Steve Ashby fastened the shoulder harness to the fuselage. We had wondered how the top of the harness was connected.	Ralph, Ray, Wyman and John with John checking the planned fuselage width. We aren't going to change that since the plans have ample room even for our butts.	*Ralph, Ray, John and Wyman checking the modified fuselage plans laid out using masking tape on the work table. The main changes are in the turtledeck and the frame behind the seat.*

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