Hi all -

I'm working on the 1/48 Acadamy Minicraft Seversky P-35A and have a question about the seat. It doesn't have a headrest but it looks, from the way it's molded, like the back of the seat is upholstered in leather.

That doesn't seem right to me. At best it might have a cushion of some sort. I guess it would be OD.

The bottom of the seat is bare aluminum. Anybody know of a picture of the cockpit interior that shows the seat? Or know what it was covered with? I've been unable to find anything on this.

All help is appreciated sincerly,
Steve

You can try here at . internetmodeler.com June2000 edition. There is a build article and references about where he found interior pics. Hope this helps, Andy

Thanks Andy -

That was helpful - I checked out one of his book references on abebooks.com and -good grief - the least expensive was a hundred bucks!

He mentions that the P-35's had natural aluminum interiors but my ref, "Cockpits", clearly shows a yellowish zinc chromate. It's the one in the USAF museum. It did however answer my question about the seat - he painted his in OD.

Thanks again,
Steve

Glad it helped. I couldnt get to the USAF site. It could have been repainted when restored. Zinc Chromate is a good protector of metal. Thats the best they have now that Red Lead was banned years ago. ,Andy

Hello Steve.

We have one in the swedish air force museum and you can see a few pics at this link .

At the bottom of the first page I must say it looks like a leather clad headrest, but it can bee dark paint too.

On the fifth page there is a view of a camerainstallation where the built in floor is dark (green) but the fuselage interior is metal. We flew these in green and blue first, but in the end they were stripped to NMF. It might be the case that they were stripped on the inside too, but that would be a lot of work. Question is if that was done during the war.

Hi Tony -

Nice site! I couldn't really tell exactly what the seat was. There is a bulkhead behind the seat that the pilot wouldn't have any contact with.

After Pearl Harbor, when the USAAC was scrambling for any fighters it could get, anywhere it could get them, they took over a bunch of P-35A's that were destined for Sweden and sent them to Pearl. Most of these wound up in the Philipines where they did their best but were destroyed. There are differences between the US and Swedish versions. Mostly in instrumentation and I always wondered if the ones in the Philippines had the Swedish arrangement.

Thanks for the info and the link.
Steve