Cockpit Details

This will be a very short blog for a few reasons. 1) I worked in the back end and while I spent enough time in the green house to know my way around the cockpit, particularly since it was necessary for putting the helicopter to bed on flights that terminated away from base and getting ready for the next day's trip away from base, the cockpit was someone else's office. 2) I do not have very many pictures of Labradors or Voyageurs that would illustrate the subtle differences between the two cockpits. 3) As a modeler of primarily 1/72 scale models and only modestly detailed models, cockpit detail is not a priority for me. For me cockpit differences of the 113 or the 113A are unimportant.  Pictures will give the modeler some indication of how the “pilot’s office” or inside the “greenhouse” generally looked. As one might expect the look of the instrument panels changed over the years while the aircraft was in service, but from my perspective only the modeler obsessed with detail and accuracy would care and from a modeling viewpoint that level of interest is too obscure to spend a great amount of effort or time on, my apologies for my lack of interest in this area. !

The above Carole Egan/Mo Smith photo shows late model 113/113A cockpit. The evidence is the glass instrumentation not found on the earlier aircraft.

Another shot of a later day cockpit. I know this because Capt. Mark Levesque is with 442 Squadron, CFB Comox. Mark and I flew together very briefly in 103 RU, Gander, Newfoundland. I arrived in the summer of 1980. He does not appear in my logbook at all so either was not an AC when he left 103 or left 103 the summer of 1980? If detail is your thing, not the ashtray attached to the back of the right hand pilot seat, the white cockpit light  Mark's head, the green tipped handheld light above the SPH-5 helmet worn by Mark. Another era marker is that fact that both pilots are wearing blue flying suits and flying jackets, not the gray of the early RCAF, tan or green common in the early 80's.  Note the outside air temp gauge at the top of the middle glass panel.

I am guessing this picture was taken in an earlier time based on the unidentified pilot's green flight suit and jacket, early style flying helmet although the instrumentation is not wildly different. At the base of the centre glass panel is the standby compass, often referred to as "Mickey Mouse". There was a handheld light on both sides of the cockpit...in this picture it appears in front of the pilot's helmet.

An unabstructed view of the cockpit from the FE's seat. This is again a later version of the cockpit as the glass instrumentation and orange seat (vs red) nylon seat covers would indicate. If my memory is any good, I believe the standby compass was a piece of the cockpit instrumentation that hardly if ever changed?

A look at the circuit breaker panel with other assorted switches including the main power switch.

The above technical drawing illustrates the pilot/copilot seat of a CH-113 Labrador.

The above illustration is of a CH-113A Voyageur. I find it somewhat bewildering that although there were some operational differences such as the floors and winches/hoists, that made some sense, I find the differences in cockpit seats odd and maybe even petty? This a difference that to a 1/72 modeler might ignore, the 1/48 modeler with an attraction to detail would pay attention to?

A representative drawing that I am unable to date, but include as a general reference.

In my next post, I will pass on some information and pictures regarding the crash position indicator (CPI).