We finally finished doping our C-3 trainer. Wings and control surfaces are ready for the fuselage.
Leroy got out his old drafting tools to place the star perfectly parallel to the fuselage.
Done doping
Proud to be American Flag Red !
As you probably know, many of the Link Trainers had flag stripes on the rudder. Here is a trainer restored by Ed Link’s folks; Ed donated trainer No. 85 built in 1941 to Melbourne, Florida’s Airport Museum.
After two coats of sealer, a coat of UV protection, and two coats of butyrate white dope, we are finally ready to put the finish color on our C-3 trainer.
We thought picking red would be easy, but there are lots of reds. I asked Rick, which one looked most like American Flag red. Rick is a researcher – he dived in and got this great answer.
In RGB color space, American flag red is hex #b22234; it is composed of 69.8% red, 13.3% green and 20.4% blue. In CMYK color space, it is 0% cyan, 80.9% magenta, 70l/*% yellow and 30.2% black. It has a hue angle of 352.5 degrees, a saturation of 67.9% and a lightness of 41.6%.
We went with Tennessee Red.
Under the big top
This looks like a circus, but is just the cheapest Amazon spray paint booth over top our C-3 blue box. We only punched one hole in the tent and perhaps shortened a couple poles setting it up, but it seems to work just fine. Got a spray coat of sealer on today, and a coat of UV protector – that’s the shiny grey stuff. Next week we apply a couple coats of white butyrate dope.
I-pad substitute
We are getting ready to recover our C-3 hood. It had been repainted green and is now cracking badly. As we prepared to remove the old cloth, we turned it over to discover a couple unique features. Two brackets support a shortened clipboard with the last pilot’s faded notes. Also, a convenient “NO SMOKING” under the hood sign.
High on glue !
We started replacing worn-out fabric on our C-3 with Ceconite. Rick (right) is a jack of all trades and has been helping with Blue Box refurbishment for years. After ripping off the old fabric, sanding the wood and priming it with poly, we asked Leroy (left) if he would be our tutor. Leroy is an airplane fabric expert. He recovered Wright Patterson AFB Training SPO’s Blue Box many years ago; and he recovered the Memphis Belle’s ailerons with authentic cotton for the Air Force Museum. Leroy is trying to teach us tricks of the fabric trade.