drag914
18-02-09, 04:30 PM
So, here's the story so far:
I have a good friend who lives in the Ukraine, near the city of Kharkov. He has about the most interesting job in the world - opening up the massive military warehouses the Russians left behind when the Soviet Union broke up. He catalogs everything and disposes of it through his network of contacts across the world (no, he's not an arms dealer! all the really 'interesting' stuff is handled by other people)
He's sent me a bunch of great old Soviet hardware in the past and he recently sent me PDF copies of blueprints to a lot of old aircraft stuff, including some seat designs from the Lisunov LI-2 (Soviet DC3 Dakota copy, built under licence and never paid for!)
I mentioned these seat blueprints to another good friend of mine who's an all-round engineering genius and he asked to have a look at the designs.
That was a week ago and today he turned up with these babies!
http://www.viralto.com/bseats/bseat1.jpg
http://www.viralto.com/bseats/bseat2.jpg
http://www.viralto.com/bseats/bseat3.jpg
As far as I can compare - they're almost an exact replica of the LI-2 military passenger seats, apart from some of the original mounting bracketry and the holes aren't flanged (don't think the tool was to hand!)
Construction method is identical to the originals - steel instead of aluminium (no worries about weight when you're carrying passengers instead of equipment!), flat-backed solid rivets with spot welds for some joints to save cost/time over using bucked rivets where they're not necessary. The edge trim is hand shrunk/stretched aluminium.
Vlad (my buddy in Kharkov) is sending me some old canvas tents (unused 1950s vintage!) so that I can get them made up into 'parachute-pack' style cushions and he's also going to dig up the paint code for the original green-grey colour of the Lisunov plane interiors.
I now look like this: :D
Where can I find a Soviet copy of a '32 to put them in?!
I have a good friend who lives in the Ukraine, near the city of Kharkov. He has about the most interesting job in the world - opening up the massive military warehouses the Russians left behind when the Soviet Union broke up. He catalogs everything and disposes of it through his network of contacts across the world (no, he's not an arms dealer! all the really 'interesting' stuff is handled by other people)
He's sent me a bunch of great old Soviet hardware in the past and he recently sent me PDF copies of blueprints to a lot of old aircraft stuff, including some seat designs from the Lisunov LI-2 (Soviet DC3 Dakota copy, built under licence and never paid for!)
I mentioned these seat blueprints to another good friend of mine who's an all-round engineering genius and he asked to have a look at the designs.
That was a week ago and today he turned up with these babies!
http://www.viralto.com/bseats/bseat1.jpg
http://www.viralto.com/bseats/bseat2.jpg
http://www.viralto.com/bseats/bseat3.jpg
As far as I can compare - they're almost an exact replica of the LI-2 military passenger seats, apart from some of the original mounting bracketry and the holes aren't flanged (don't think the tool was to hand!)
Construction method is identical to the originals - steel instead of aluminium (no worries about weight when you're carrying passengers instead of equipment!), flat-backed solid rivets with spot welds for some joints to save cost/time over using bucked rivets where they're not necessary. The edge trim is hand shrunk/stretched aluminium.
Vlad (my buddy in Kharkov) is sending me some old canvas tents (unused 1950s vintage!) so that I can get them made up into 'parachute-pack' style cushions and he's also going to dig up the paint code for the original green-grey colour of the Lisunov plane interiors.
I now look like this: :D
Where can I find a Soviet copy of a '32 to put them in?!