The Plan

The plan we came up with to convert the Thunderbird into the Ki27 was simple. We decided to lengthen the fuselage about five feet, attach a new wing, build new landing gear, and recover the fuselage with aluminum. The result will be a full-scale replica of the Ki27. It will be a true two seat aircraft.

We decided to use a Mooney wing to save the time required for building a wing. We saw that the Mooney wing plan form was very similar to the Ki27 wing.

...Click images for a larger version...

Here is a scan of both wings with a Ki27 wingtip superimposed on a Mooney wing. The wings are almost exactly the same size. Almost all of the dimensions of each aircraft are identical.	We found a pair of Mooney wings for sale on www.barnstormers.com.	We also found a Mooney Fuselage. We needed to extract the frame from the fuselage in order to harvest the wing mount box.
Here is Master Welder Gene beefing up the wing mount box prior to cutting it loose from the frame.	Gene and Cliff added heavier tubes one at a time to the box while the box was still part of the frame. This kept the box from changing in shape or dimension.	The box is complete.
This is the whole frame before extracting the wing mount box.	The box has been harvested.	Here is the completed repair to the front of the fuselage. This is where the engine mount attaches.
Cliff makes all repair splices in accordance with the FAA repair manual.	All welds are TIG.	Cliff added gussets for additional support.
A lot of new tubing has been added to the old structure. Note the size of the tubes. This thing was made to be very strong by Gid Townsend.	This is where the old meets the new. The change in angle was necessary to stop the original taper towards the engine mount.	Cliff stopped the taper and kept the dimensions constant the rest of the way to the engine mount area.
There was also about 1.5 degrees of bend in the upper tubing caused by the old damage done to the fuselage. Cliff fixed this in accordance with the regulations.	The new airframe. It is about five feet longer than the original.	The seat has been moved forward.
Gene admires his work.	We hung some aluminum on the frame to get an idea of how it is shaping up.	The left arrow shows the old position of the pilot seat.
Cliff inspects the installation of the rudder pedals.	Norm is sitting in the rear seat checking the placement of the various controls.	Here I am checking the clearance between the throttle quadrant and the elevator trim.
Trim controls and throttles are installed and linked from front seat to back seat. Cliff really knows his stuff.	The hanging chain will attach to the rudder trim cable.	The wobble pump is installed above the fuel selector valve.
On the left you can see the rudder trim knob. To the right of the knob you can see the elevator trim handle.	Front throttle.	The wing is in place, but not yet attached. We hung the aluminum in place again to get an idea of how we are doing.
It’s starting to look like an airplane again.

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