Oleson wrote: > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "MotorcycleShopper.com" <mshopper@cfl.rr.com> > > Hi all: > > > > what thickness plywood is recommended for the Fly Baby seat? > > The plans style plywood seat is agony to the posterior on any cross country > flight of over nine minutes. I replaced mine with a lightweighr contoured > seat from a Bushby Midget Mustang with a foam insert and covered all with > deerhide and and flew it for over five hundred hours. I'll back Ole on this...the plans-style seat shouldn't be wished on your worst enemy. I suffered for a while with the stock seat back when I was flying N500F, then eventually built a contoured job. I did two cross-sections out of 3/4 shop plywood (shape was what I imagined a comfortable seat would be), attached some cross members, and covered the curved upper surface with 0.040" aluminum shaped to fit. The back was a big bent "U" of aluminum tubing with straps across it, like a lawn chair. Moonraker had an OUTSTANDING upholstered seat in it when I bought it. Unfortunately, it was semi-reclined and absolutely unusable for a guy my height. I took a fiberglass stacking chair and rigged up a wooden base. One thing that really helps somewhat-uncomfortable chairs: Temperfoam. I've got a 1" temperfoam pad on the base of mine, and it really makes a difference. > > Also, out of curiosity, has anyone used aluminum to cover the turtledeck > > all the way to the tail? It seems to me that it would allow for a smother > > covering and less detail work on the formers. Just wondering. That's a lot of aluminum going all the way aft....wood and fabric are cheaper,and probably quite a bit lighter. The Graham Lee Nieuport replicas do this with 0.016 aluminum, but a lot of guys pass it up since if something drops on it, it dents. No reason you couldn't though. Ron Wanttaja