Japanese Zero

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Two seats. Would like to get as much of these details worked out as soon as possible.
 
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Anyone? ...
I don't think we are going to guess as to what was in the 'blank' area of that cross brace. I understand it was a bracket, but without a pretty good idea of how it looked, probably just leave it blank if nobody has a clear idea of what was under the black tubing, in this area. I don't want to guess, and have something on there that doesn't look right. Might be better to leave it blank.
 
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I think you had better leave it blank.
The engine starter handle was an influence of the A5Ms and not necessarily essential for the A6Ms in operation.
 
Hi Drgondog,

A surprising number of people simply go out the left side, probably due to mostly entering on the left side. Most people in combat did from asking a few questions at the monthly talks at the Museum. Perhaps I only asked those who went out the left side adn that is not a general rule.

I was at the Incredible Universe Race in Phoenix, AZ when Kevin Eldrige caught fire in bailed out. He went out the left side and hit the horizontal tail and broke a few bones. Little did I realize that later in life I would meet him and become friends via the Planes of Fame. I asked him why he didn't go out the right side since the propwash would be moving downward and he said he din;t even think about it, just went out the left. He did allow that if there was ever a next time, he'd try the side with the downward turning blades since he already knows how much hitting a part of the plane hurts.

Steve Hinton rode his planes down since they weren't on fire and burning brightly. Kevin's Super Corsair didn't explode, but I can only wonder why after seeing the fire. Nice looking work!


Hey Bent Metal,

I was under the impression the seats leaned back a bit. I'll look at that next time I get to Chino ... probably Saturday.
 
The seat as built has a slight angle to the rear along the radius until it reaches either side, which is true vertical. You can see the seat back's slight ioffset along the radius in Shinpachi's blueprint.

Once the seat is mounted, it appears to be slightly reclined. I am not sure if the height adjustment causes that or if the seat mount allows for that adjustment.
 
I'm surprised you guys noticed the lean back in the seat! Several of you have good points. Yes they did lean back, but very slightly. The blueprint drawing looks right to me. The CGI drawing is not, most noticably the lumbar is way too pronounced. The form is correct but the shape is completely wrong. The sides too. It's similar to, but different than the real seat. Let me clarify some things. We are not trying to make an exact copy, so we have taken some liberties. In an effort to make the seat look like a Zero seat but still be comfortable. Some one mentioned our seat looks too straight up. I agree, but it's actually leaned back (in relation to it's floor/bottom) more than the original. For comforts sake. And! It still wasn't comfortable but if it leaned back any more we were afraid of losing the "look", so we leaned the seat mount back. The boss sat in the seat on a bench, leaned back till it felt right, I marked it and that's why it leans where it does now. About 25 or 30 degrees, a lot!
I knew I'd get some pretty stern critiques from you guys that know. I admitedly do not. But that's why we came here, to get some answers. So, with that in mind, I hope we can get some answers to our questions, I'd love to know what was right and wrong even though we are not necessarily going to make our seat that way. For example, we might never know what was on that cross brace in the blank spot, but the seat belt coat hangers, didn't know about those, gotta' have um'.
What I'm trying to say is, please give your input. Possitive or negative, just a comment, or more information, I'd like to hear it all. Hope you are diggin' the project, it has been very interesting for us.
 
No problems here!

You're doing a heck of a job with those seats and as far as the "blank" area goes, remember these seats were used in the earlier A5M and had different equipment attached that were no longer nessecary in the A6M series.

This would, for example, be like Chevy using the bucket seats from the '67 Nova SS for the '69 Corvair Monza 900 or Ford using the same lower control arms for the Mustang, Falcon and Maverick and so on.
 
Great point! I guess the thing that bothered me was that there were holes for rivets. As if something was there, now gone. The blank area got my attention, but the rivet holes made me think that something was there at one time.
 
Oh, one more thing. If nothing was in that blank area, why have the attatchement point for the other end of the strap?
 
Probably the best thing to try, is getting a photograph of the actual seat in one of the current A6Ms, and see how the starter crank handle is secured between the two brackets. The leather retaining strap that secured the starter crank to the back of the seat shared the three outboard holes of each bracket.

Perhaps Greg can get a photo of the back of the seat of the A6M they have there at the Planes of Fame in Chino for additional detail.

As far as unused holes in a production piece, the afore-mentioned lower control arm Ford made for the Falcon/Comet/Mustang/Maverick contained a cluster of four 5/16" holes and then a single 3/8" hole outboard, located before the balljoint. This allowed the control arm to be used on the right or left side, only two of the four holes being used for that particular side's radius rod. Same goes for the 3/8" hole, which was there in case the customer ordered the optional anti-sway bar...otherwise it was not used.
 
That drawing with the 10degrees "looks" about right. I think the four arms were the same length. Almost have to be, or the seat would tip as it was raised and lowered. Also, about half as long as in that picture. But that doesn't matter, so if the arms are the same length, we could look at the blue print with the seat floor at flat and level and measure the difference between the attachment points on the back/side and bottom of the seat. Assuming the bulkhead that the arms are attached is straight up vertical, not leaning, and all of the arms are the same length. The difference in the attachement points is going to give the angle. So really those attachement points should be straight over top of each other in the above "10degree" drawing. Which they are not, so if everything is how I'm assuming it is, bulkhead perpendicular to the floor, and the arms all the same length....Then the seat would lean back a few more degrees, till those attachment points were lined up. ...Right?
 
What about the color. I've been looking around here and there seems to not be a difinate answer. But I know I'm ignorant. Basically two different colors that could have been used. I like the color that is in the Spinachi drawings best. Is that close to the darker of the two colors that the Zero used? I have seen the seat bottom that was from a Zero crashed in Russia. I'm guessing an early production model. Because of the weaker structure where the seats usually break. Anyhow, the color, which is the lighter of the two colors, not diggin' it. I was hoping for a darker green.

Was there an early or late color of green? Any rhyme or reason to it all?
 
Met Bent Metal at the museum today and we pulled out the seat for our A6M5 Model 52. It looks like a straight-up seat as in the drawing, but is leaned back a bit by way of seat mounts.

He got pics.
 
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