Cockpit for Model Aircraft

This Instructable is for creating an aircraft cockpit for a scale model (from scratch.)

Instructables show 3 pictures in each step. Most steps have considerably more photos. Remember to click on the "8 More Images" button.

My model is an HH-46D Sea Knight. The real helicopter is a retired NAVY Rescue helicopter currently living in Chino California. Unfortunately that location is across the country from me, so the research was for any HH-46 or CH-46 cockpit pictures. This not only includes the instrument panel, but the rudder petals, seats, collective stick, the cyclic stick and the Bulkhead behind the Pilot's seats.

I use Google, you can use your favorite search engine. You may need to do screen captures to keep the pictures to your local computer. You will probably keep searching as your cockpit becomes more built up.

Models of your aircraft are a good place to get ideas. I have a CH/HH-46D 1/48th scale Sea Knight that I found on Amazon that I used for the details on the position of the seats and the angle of the instrument panel. I didn't build the whole model just the front windows, cockpit and bulkhead position.

To start with you have to know what the scale of your aircraft is. Some models have a scale as part of their product name. Mine is a 1/6th scale. To check, I measured the width of the model fuselage to the real one's width, mine is close to 1/6th scale so that is is my number. This is going to be the number you multiply the actual size measurements by to come up with how big your scale parts will be.

Next I took the front part of my helicopter and traced it onto a large piece of paper. I traced both the back (red) of the cockpit and the side of the cockpit (blue).

This paper becomes your number conversion area. For the HH-46, the width of the helicopter is not easily found and it would include the pods for the landing gear. I found the height (16' 9") and the attached 3 view. I figured out the actual height of the cockpit was 56% of the total height (inner red lines). My cockpit is 20" tall so it comes out to 1/6th scale. A bit more math and I find that the actual width of the helicopter is 9.4' wide.

I found this panel on the MS Flight Simulator site. It said it was for the CH-46, but the instruments didn't match the actual, For this step the actual instruments don't matter, just the size and shape of the panel. I imported the picture into XCS (Xtool Creative Studio - Free) and traced the outline (red line on first picture). I have a laser so I cut out the panel on card stock until it fit in the cockpit where is was supposed to go. If you don't have a laser, you can print out the panel on a piece of paper and cut it out. Once the panel fits correctly (holding it with your hand) you can move on to the support for the panel.

For the panel support, every model will be different. My model has a front spot light and a set of front lights. These are in the center of the the area I want to use for my support. Using velum paper (thin) I pressed the paper into the area where I had space to put a set of supports. I used this pressing to trace out the support parts on thick craft paper. For me these ended up being mostly round as the nose of the HH-46 is round. Through a series cutting the craft paper and taping more back on I was able to create the 2 side plates for my panel support.

Continuing with the tape and craft paper I added cross supports into place.

Once the paper support would slide in and out cleanly and covered the entire front area of the cockpit (matching the actual aircraft) I took the paper and traced the edges with a black marker. As I said before, I use a laser for my cutting, so I scanned the parts into the computer and used XCS to trace the panel supports. I cut the initial sides from 3mm aircraft ply.

With these 2 parts in the cockpit I added 1/8" x 1/2" bass wood sticks to hold the 2 sides in place. It was at this point that I found there was an interference problem with the right side part hitting the light box. I recut the panels adding the cutout for the light box. Later I modified the file to add a lot of lightning holes and recut the files. Every gram you add to the nose you have to pay for in the tail.

The panel structure needs to be anchored to the aircraft in a way that is your choice. In my case, I added a lip to the very nose of the HH-46 inside just above the front light bar. Mine is placed into the nose and then clipped into place at the bottom of the bent piece in the last picture. I debated adding a screw to either side of the structure to make sure it didn't fall out in flight. The clip was enough, so ne screws were added. This also allows me to completely remove the cockpit if I need to, for example, I need to access the headlights.

Now that the panel can be installed onto the supports its time to get to the details.

From your research, you should have the instrument panel layout understood. PRINT THIS OUT.

Using a CAD Program (you can use word or another program that allows you to draw circles and rectangles), start putting the instruments into the panel you made a couple steps ago.

Above is my panel starting point picture, my CAD drawing of the instruments and the panel I cut out. The panel is a it time consuming, but will be well worth it. My first cutout included the outline of the panel and all the other lines scored on the panel. I cut it out a second time with all the internal parts cutout, bezels, switches, screens, keyboards, etc. This second cutout had a lot of tiny parts.

The next step is to take all the little parts and put them onto the panel that has the score lines on it. Matching each one to its position on the first panel cutout.

At this point, I realized that the panel was getting too heavy (Wood panel picture 3 above). Just the panel, without the mounting structure was 179 grams. I made a trip to Hobby Lobby and cleaned them out of Polystyrene section. I got the .01, .02 and .04 inches thick. Using the .02 as the base layer and the .04 as the bezels etc, I was down to 40 grams. The wood was much easier to glue up. The polystyrene had to be glued with model cement and took a lot longer to dry.

The Polystyrene is definitely the way to go. The flexibility is not a problem once the panel is installed.

This step can be done on a printer, print 2 copies of your panel. Mount the first copy on your choses of materials. The second is mounted onto the material you will use for the bezels. In the future, I would probably use wood on polystyrene just for the ease of gluing and the added thickness of wood. .02" polystyrene is still the best choice for the panel base. 1.5mm aircraft ply would be the bezels etc.

For my model, there is a secondary panel that is between the pilots. It is made in the same way as the main instrument panel and has only switches and dials on it.

Last part to this step is to paint the panel the base color and texture. I use the Rust-Oleum Matte Hammered Black. This paint leaves little bumples that look very close to the military texture of the panel as well as the other parts in the cockpit (seat rails, floor, glair shield, etc.)

We will add the individual instruments (Step 8 - You can go there now if you want) and the knobs and switches later (Step 12 Details.)

The next step requires a leap of faith if you do not have a model of your aircraft - the angle of the panel. In some cases you can use a side view of the aircraft to determine the angle you need to put the panel. Once you have that angle, cut the structure you made in step 4 Panel Structure to accommodate the angle of the panel. I intentionally left that area big so I could cut the the angle when I had the panel ready.

Once I cut the Panel Structure down to the correct angle and the correct distance from the windshield I went ahead and glued the 2 parts together.

Do not install the panel yet.

The glair shield is the cover that goes over the panel. In general it is shaped to cover the back of the panel to the windshields. To start grab a piece of paper and cut it to the shape of the windshield, this is you template. Tape the template to the windshield and install the panel. Using a pencil or sharpie, run along the panel to mark where the panel contacts the paper glair shield. Take the paper out and add 1/4" to a 1/2" out from the panel line.

At your local craft store or Hobby Lobby, grab a large piece of black (or the color you want) foam. Not foam core, just the bendy foam kids make crafts from (Silly Winks 5mm). Outline your paper template onto the foam with a silver sharpie and cut it out. Cut your template when the panel line is and mark that on the foam glair shield, don't cut here, use a sharp Exacto blade and score 3/4 of the way through the foam. This assumes you used the .02 polystyrene sheet as the base of your panel. If you used a 3mm or 1.5mm sheet of wood, you may need to cut out a groove to fit the material thickness of your panel. Alternatively, you can sand your panel top edge to a point to allow the score line to work.

Take the foam to the edge of a work bench and sand the panel edge of the foam

Using Welders or FoamTack, or another glue that is for use on foam, to glue the foam onto the top of the panel in the grove. Let it dry.

Once the panel is dry, paint the foam with Rust-Oleum Matte Hammered Black to seal the glare shield. You can always paint the glare shield any color, but the hammered look is a customary finish for these.

Now that your panel looks like a panel, we need to add the instruments. Even with a laser this is a fiddly part. The above is the actual picture of the HH-46 I am making the cockpit for. If you zoom in real far you can see what each instrument is. Altimeter, Airspeed, Engine instruments, keyboards, etc. Once you identify a bunch of them, go back to your search engine or the files you had saved in Step 1, and bring them into your panel drawing.

At this point you can scale your instruments and print them out in color. Cut them out and place them into the holes on your panel.

If you are using a CAD program, you can do the following. In XCS (an probably others) you can select one of your circles and a picture of the instrument and click Create. This cuts out the instrument from the picture. The side effect is that the rest of the picture is now erased. I suggest making a number of copies of the picture as you want instruments from that picture. The cluster above has 8 instruments and a switch, I only want 4 of them, so 4 copies. Once complete, I print the panel on a color printer and place it into my laser, align the paper and the panel cutout and cut out the instruments. The drawing in the 5th picture is in XCS with with many of the instruments filled in.

Now that you have the instruments cut out, glue them in with a glue stick. To make the instruments look like glass, I use UV Resin and put the panel in the sun. Any clear liquid should work well. I tried RC-56 Window glue, but it didn't come out well. Try your glue on scraps so you do not ruin your panel.

On my panel there is a patch of yellow and black caution tape where the co-pilot's collective stick sits. I printed out a shape of yellow and black stripes in a variety of widths and picked the one that looked the best. Glued it on with glue stick and covered it with UV resin.

The last picture in this step is the main panel on the grass drying the UV resin.

To prepare for the rest of the cockpit, we need the false floor. If your model does not have false floor, then skip this step.

Using pictures and the 1/48 scale model, I can see there is a false floor that starts at the back of the cheek windows to the back of the helicopter. Using my scale of 1/6 and the 1/48 scale model, I measured the model and scaled it up to 100 then down to 1/6. This gave me a floor that is 2.4" tall. I drew up a box that would sit flat in the cockpit. My helicopter is very round, so the box is only 8" wide.

I used XCS to draw up a box then put a bunch of lightening holes in it to reduce the weight. This was cut from 3mm birth plywood.

Once it fit well, I made a frame from 1/4" x 1/2" bass wood to be glued it into position to hold the false floor. I used epoxy to glue in the frame to the cockpit floor, making sure the epoxy filled in any gaps in the floor bottom.

To mount the false floor box, I drilled a 5mm hole and glued in a 3mm threaded insert into the box. Then drilled a 3.5mm hold through the frame. I can now use an M3 (3mm) thumb screw to hold the false floor box to the frame.

From the scale model, I was able to pull these parts out of the kit. There were 3 parts to each seat rail set. The X back and 2 L-brackets. Using Plasticity to draw these took me about 30 minutes. After I got the seat rails done I use the 3D printer to print them. I used minimum infill and wall thickness to reduce weight. It did take 4 editions and a few hours of printing until I was satisfied with the final product. If I had not had the scale model, I did find a schematic of the seats.

I painted these with the same Hammered paint as the instrument panel, but then sprayed them with a light gray to match the photos of the actual seat rails. I like the hammered look for all the interior that can be seen as it makes everything look more aged.

To mount the seat rails, I used servo mounting screws through pre-drilled holes into the false floor. Make sure you get them centered or where they are supposed to be positioned, or you will weaken your false floor. If you do not have a false floor, I would use Scotch Extremely Strong velcro-ish material or 3M Dura-lock. These products don't not have a rough and smooth side, but rather they click together to form a strong but removable bond. The adhesive on them is very strong, so no need to add additional support (CA Glue.)

To make the seats, again I referred to the 1/48th scale model. I created a template that would fit on the seat rails from paper. The actual material is foam clay from Hobby Lobby. This is an Air Dry Foam Clay that has a weight of 250grams per 100 cubic mm. I used about 1/4 of the tub to make 4 seats (made a mistake) so each seat weights 15g.

Using the paper pattern, grab a handful of the clay and roll it into a ball to get the seams gone. Press it out to 1/4" thick all around the paper pattern. Mush the edges until they are the shape of your seats, mine are 1/4 round. If you get a crease, a little drop of water rubbed over the seam will make it disappear.

Using a 1/8' dowel, I pressed the seat pattern into the seat and mushed the center to make it look well used.

Let the clay dry until it is firm. The foam is dense enough that I was able to use screws through the seat reals to attach it them. 2 in the bottom and 2 in the back.

I bought a 1/6th scale pilot from RC Pilots Figures (Adam) and put him in the pilots seat. It took a bit to get him the right shape, but since he is just metal rods with cloths on, it was easy to bend him correctly for my aircraft.

Seat belts. You can buy the webbing from some online stores, but I didn't have time to do that. So, using some webbing from Hobby Lobby in the sewing section, I used the sewing machine to put stitches on the webbing. Once the webbing was ready to go I attached the 5 points for a standard harness to the seat rails with servo screws. the belt buckle is a repurposed hat pin with the decoration removed. Adding a clay center to the hat pin to make the buckle look real. The pilot side and the empty seat both have the same belt configuration.

This is where the last 5% cost the most time. Since this model is a helicopter, I need collective sticks, cyclic sticks and rudder peddles with brakes. I used pictures from my research and my 1/48 scale model for the cyclic and collective sticks. They are pretty complicated, drawing them in Plasticity took a few hours to get them shaped and sized to match the pictures.

I won't go into detail, but I'm new to the 3D printing and Plasticity, but there are a lot of great videos to show you how to wrap surfaces and angle sides. Its a really simple software if you have never used any 3D modeling software.

To mount the cyclic and collective sticks, I heated up a 1/16" piece of brass rod and pushed it into the base of the 3D printed parts. I bent the brass rod to fit in the pilots hands as they would be in flight. Painted these black matte and drilled holes in the seat to hold them.

The rudder petals were a lot easier to draw and print. These were painted gray and glued directly to the actual floor of the cockpit as that is where they are in the the real helicopter. This was a bit tricky as the pilot has really big feet. And the feet needed to be up on the rudder peddles. His ankles got a bit bent in the process, but he still looks cool.

For additional scale detail on the panel, I created knobs (3 sizes) toggle switches and push switches. These were sized and shaped based on the cockpit picture I chose to make my panel from. Before painting the little parts, I stuck them all onto a piece of aluminum tape so they did not go flying everywhere. The toggle switches and the push switches I painted chrome, while the knobs were painted gun mettle. Once they were dry I carefully put them in the locations they belonged based on the photo.

The last thing I did on the panel was to add the colored switch and indicator lights. These I simply pushed red, orange and yellow clay into the cutouts in the panel where the indicator lights were. The clay was bake dry clay, but I did not bake it, It works fine without.

For my model there is a bulkhead that goes right behind the pilot seats. This is nice as it hides the mechanics from view. To build this I once again started with some craft paper. Using the outline made in step 2, I cut out and fitted the paper to the back of the cockpit. The only difficult part was that there is a 30 degree angle just above the pilots heads. I originally tried just bending craft foam to the shape, but it did not hold.

I took a piece of craft foam and cut out the pattern made from paper. I then cut 75% through the foam 1" from the door frame. Using some steal rod, I bent a frame that was the same size and the slot and glued it in place with FoamTack glue. Once it was dry, I bent the metal frame to the correct shape for the bulkhead. this worked really well and did not require any structure to be added to the cockpit.

To hold the foam bulkhead in place, I pressed the foam into the seat frame to mark where the frame touched the bulkhead. I cut out the rectangles for the 2 seat frames. To keep the foam from slipping off, I added body clips (R clips) to the seats.

For my helicopter, I wanted to be able to get out the parts of the cockpit in case I needed to service the headlights or the spot light. The Seats are mounted to the false floor, which comes out with 1 M3 thumb nut. The panel is held in at the front with the slide in hook made in Step 3. This leaves the base panel (area between the pilots) to be attached to the false floor.

The base panel is mounted on a 1/4" x 1/2" spruce rectangle the same length as the false floors width and the width of the base panel. Using an additional piece of 1/4" x 1/2" spruce, I glued this to the base panel's rectangle where it lined up with the false floor. I added a second thumb screw to hold this sub assemble in place. See the first picture for the thumb screws.

Add the bulkhead and the 2 clips and you are done.

This is a picture of the completed helicopter at the 2025 HeliStorm Scale Helicopter Meet in Dayton Ohio. The total time I had to build the interior was 2 weeks. This entire instructable comes from that time.

Thanks for reading until the end and I would be happy to help you with your build remotely :)