Virtual Museum -
Instrument Panels
Instrument panels are the best way to display aircraft instruments
and provide a focus on what instruments to collect. The most
popular panel to rebuild would have to be one from a Spitfire.
Getting original panels for some types of aircraft are difficult.
Even if you do find one, you can expect to pay big dollars. A
number of replica panels are now on the market and are sold in various
formats - raw metal, primed, fully painted, painted with placards, and
complete with instruments. Even replica panels are not
cheap. A couple of sites on the internet sell reproduction
Spitfire panels with no instruments for as much as £300.00.
Another site I saw was selling a BF109 instrument panel for over
EU$1000.00.
This page shows a number of panels that were used in Royal New
Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) aircraft. With the exception of the
C-47 panel, they are presented in "order of use" to show what a New
Zealand fighter pilot would have sat behind from WWII training through
to flying post-war jets (although some WWII pilots did fly the Vampire,
I don't think any got as far as the A-4 Skyhawk however). This
order (leaving the C-47 out) would be as follows:
Instruments
include: lower left, altimeter; top left, airspeed indicator; top
left of centre, inclinometer; top centre, turn and slip; top right, RPM
gauge with adaptor plate (this instrument is tilted so that the
connection at the rear of the instrument is clear of the oil pressure
gauge underneath); lower right, oil pressure gauge. Centre hole
is for compass, which needs a holder.
This
panel differs from most others in that it has a cover plate that is
hinged at the bottom. This made the panel neater and also allowed the
fitting of lights which were located inder the five raised domes. Two
locking knobs are located at top to prevent the panel folding forward
when you didn't want it to. The altimeter and gun pressure gauge
are yet to be fitted.
The
Spitfire panel is very large compared with most other WWII panels (the
edges are actually smooth but here they look as though a rat has had a
good chew after I deleted the backgroun in Photoshop). A number of
gauges and items are also specific to the Spitfire and therefore very
collectible and hard to obtain. At present, this panel is very much a
work in progress while I hunt down items to fill the vacant holes. If
anyone has a spare ASI, RPM gauge, undercarriage indicator, flap
leaver, fuel pressure gauge, etc gathering dust and they want to sell
it, please let me know! Chris.Rudge@xtra.co.nz
Curtiss
P-40N-1 Kittyhawk. The P-40N-1 panel differs from other versions
of the P-40 as the attitude and direction indicator were deleted.
This was part of a weight-saving programme that saw the P-40N-1 being
the fastest production version. The RNZAF flew a number of
P-40N-1s in combat against the Japanese. For further details of
these combats, please see my book "Air-to-Air"
here.
FG-1D CORSAIR INSTRUMENT PANEL. The
F4U instrument panel is wide in keeping with the spacious cockpit of
the Corsair and other US Navy fighters. The hole at top right was
where the wiring went from the gunsight, which reflected an image on
the windscreen rather than on an inbuilt glass screen. The hole at
lower left was for the drop tank control.
The P-51D
was operated by the RNZAF after WWII in a number of Territorial
squadrons. The gauge at bottom right was either left blank with a
plate, or had either an
accelerometer or a homing instrument fitted (as is the case here).
The
variatons in C-47 and DC3 panels is huge due to the fact that they saw
service from prior to WWII through to the present day. As a
result, old instruments were removed and updated as required when newer
navigation aids were developed. This panel features some of the
original layout expected from a WWII panel, as well as additional holes
for radio equipment. 
The de
Havilland Vampire "panel" was large by comparison with other
single-pilot aircraft. The "panel" actually consists of five
panels. Not shown here is a panel that sits above the blind
flying panel which contained the gyro gunsight controls. The
reason this image looks a bid moth-eaten around the edges is that I
have removed the background digitally.
The
instrument panel on an A-4 was a bit more complex that those used in
WWII but was still relatively compact. Many gauges were reduced in size
with engine gauges typically being just two inches across (the oil
pressure gauge is only one inch). The RNZAF A-4 panel shown here
was removed from a Skyhawk that saw service with the Royal Australian
Navy (RAN) and US Navy. New Zealand purchased ten RAN aircraft in
1984 after an initial purchase of 12 aircraft in 1968. Twenty
Australian aircraft had been purchased for use on the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne, but
10 were lost through accident. This panel is from an ex-US Navy F
model which had seen service in Vietnam. As such, it has therefore been
owned by three air forces and was used in combat in South-East
Asia. At present, instruments are being progressively added so
that the panel represents a pre-Kahu upgrade version as used by the
RNZAF.