Paint Scheme on the left. No question. Stunning.
That's 3 votes. Should we post a poll??

Agreed. Go left young man
 

I am totally with the crowd on this one. The scheme on the left is awesome.
Bill

Well that got some action going, I am making a few mods to the left one so I hope it will enhance your comments. I will post the next round as soon as I see them.

Sorry to disagree, but my vote is for the one on the right. It looks a lot like "our favorite airplane" in the photos section

I agree with Todd, I prefer the one on the right as well. BTW, can you put those three bladed props on a T337G??? Can you heat the front one??? How do they stand up to stone chips, and other impact damage compared to Aluminum?? Just curious. FWIW, I kind of like the current paint scheme on your plane as well, more of a classic look to my eye....better match for the interior too. Can't loose either way though.

Yes the MT's are approved for the G model. Yes the front can be heated. The leading edge has a stainless steel strip and is really heavy duty. You never have to dress the blade like the original aluminum McCaully's. The rear is in the line of fire though, no different than the original, and will suffer damage if contacted with FOD. I have had to do 3 repairs on my rear in 6 years. The repairs are pretty easy, using 5 minute epoxy. Re-paint is the trickiest part. If you search MT props there are photos and more info on this message board. Thanks for the comments on the paint scheme.

Paint Scheme
 

I vote for the one on left. Mush more modern design. Looks like new Cessna paint scheme on 172 & 182. Dale Campbell

Not that I'm trying to lobby for the left one, but Dale has a point: it gives the impression of a new airplane. It's only partly in jest when I suggest that some day you might even hear "Hey, that must be a rare Adam A500." OK, I am trying to lobby for the left one.

Ernie

Me too, Ernie. I think the one on the left looks 'SWOOPY', stylish, while the one on the right, looks, well, plain. Not nearly as stylish. As a Plus, the Brown is more pronounced, and compliments the very nice interior.

The curvilinear trim of the left design study does look slick but I dislike the visual disconnect between the body and the boom/tail structure. For that reason I like the more unitary right study better, however, it needs to have both the brown and the gold trim colors carried onto the tail. Perhaps yet a third iteration could combine the design concepts of the curvilinear trim on the left with the fusalage/ empanage unifying elements of the right.

I concur with Steve. The rendering on the left accentuates the short and tall fuselage of the Skymaster. Extending the colors onto the boom and possibly creating a more narrow and longer band of gold along the lower fuselage and adding an accent color (gold or brown) to the top of the front cowling might help create a more sleek look. I'm taking a particular interest in the paint scheme because I too an planning to have my Skymaster repainted soon. Not to mention an interest in general in all Skymasters looking the best possible. I printed out the two proposed paint schemes and took an unscientific poll of friends and fellow aviators. The paint scheme on the right was preferred 7 to 1. Keep us posted with the latest revisions, and thanks for sharing all the detailed information on the restorations.

Attached is a word file that has all 4 paint scheme versions on it. once you open the file zoom in to about 200% for good detail. Also looking at them at 100% would be about what one would see if the aircraft was on the runway taking off while you stood on the ramp. It is a good contrast to look at the designs that way.

Scheme 4 has been changed to provide an extra color stripe, Maya Gold and also the design on the vertical stab. Scheme 3 has taken the original belly colors and stretched them out to give a longer fuselage look. I think it worked on scheme 3. The template also is a non-pressurized cabin to provide the correct window configuration.

With scheme 3, would the all white cowling cause glare in the pilots eyes? I know that some of the pictures of Skymasters I found had all white (or what appeared to be all white) cowlings. Do they use a different sheen up there?

Paint scheme
 

Hi Herb,
The top of my cowl is all white and I never noticed any glaire. Bottom line is it is your aircraft and go with what you like the best. You have to pay the bill and live with it not the rest of us. Good luck with your 337, it is sure looking great. Dale Campbell

I think No 3 is HOT!!

Thanks for all the input on the paint scheme, I am still trying to tweek the designs a little working with number 3.

Interior progress is still progressing. My interior guys continue to give me finish dates each week but they run into roadblocks that never allow the date to be correct. I still haven't seen the seats but maybe today!!! Some of the roadblocks have been the fault of others, like all of a sudden I decided that we need to replace the map light switch on the left side column by the pilot. My interior guys tried to make it work but it looks like the best avenue is replacement. So now they couldn't finish that trim work around the emergency exit window until I got a new switch. Another order from Cessnaparts.com and the switches are on the way. They were in stock at $6.17 each. When they arrived they are a little different than original but they were direct from Cessna. Actually different in a better way. As of last Saturday the new switch was installed by my qualified IA. Also the new Rosen visors had to be mounted, and after reading their procedure we realized that the visors mount to the Royalite trim over the pilots. At first this was quite a surprise, and we scratched our heads on this one. Rosen's design for the mounting of these units in a Skymaster is a little Mickey Mouse for a better term. I called Rosen and they were no help at all. On top of that their instruction sheet was not clear enough to see the photos of the figures they kept referencing in the procedure. They said that they didn't have the original photos anymore and were sorry they could not help me. Well, I understood how they wanted them to mount so through a process of elimination we got the visors mounted. Has anyone ever installed these? Interesting but once I got the up, WOW these are going to be nice. Oh and they do have an STC for the Skymaster so all the paperwork can be legalized. Now we just need to get the interior guys back.

As some of you may have seen in a post from Larry we made a trip to Nashville to visit Owen Bell. What a great trip and Owen was there with open arms welcoming us. See the Sky-Monster post for details on some real excitement at Owen's Aviation Enterprises. It was a real pleasure to meet and talk with Owen, his son Chris and their employees. He has a lot of things going on down there and it all has something to do with Skymasters. After trying to pry Larry out of the 700 HP P337 we loaded up our goods and flew north. You know you're living when you have tailwinds going and tailwinds coming back. What fun!

Last night we pulled off the old wing tips and started to fit the new Lightning Wingtips from Owen. It's going to be fun and effective. What difference. I'll fog a little Boeshield in there now that this access is open too. More to come on the wingtips later. Here are some progress pictures, one of the interior shots shows the removable panel that provides access to the main gear components inside the cabin. They used velcro to attach the panel and it works really well. The annual is complete except for the gear swing and performed to perfection by my qualified IA. We are winding down and now before I know it we will be at the paint shop. Then a new thread will be posted on the trials of painting a Skymaster. Stay tuned.

Herb,

As you may recall, I am in similar (but less public) process with my plane at this moment. I am very interested to learn more about the wingtips you are installing, because I wanted to install new wingtips too, but was told there are no wingtips with landing lights in them (like the RMD ones I have on my other plane). In my other plane I have HID lights in the wingtips, and I can light up this side of the planet when landing - apparently no such luck for the 337G.

Can you send me more pics and maybe a link on your wingtips, so I can investigate further?

I installed the Rosen visors several years ago and experienced similar difficulties. As I recall the stiffeners were not even close to the proper size, shape or form requiring a couple of hours of grinding, bending, trial fit and repeat until I had a servicable arrangement. I found the visors to be an effective sun block but found their two claims to fame, transparency and adjustability, more hype than substance. You wouldn't want to bet your life on spotting conflicting traffic while trying to see through them and although they are somewhat adjustable the sun is somehow always just out of their range. On the wingtip installation; I assume you or your mechanic have strap duplicators but if not they are a slick little tool for match drilling the new tips to the existing nut plates that you definitely want to employ.

Part of the Horton STOL STC is having the wingtips. How does having the winglet wing tips affect the Horton STC?

Wing tips w/ winglets are from Owen Bell at Aviation Enterprises

www.aviationenterprises.us

I will post some more photos. We got them ready to drill the new holes tonight. I am not sure about the strap duplicator but the instructions that Owen has calls out a 2 inch wide .020 aluminum to duplicate the holes in the original tips and transfer to the new tips. Should work fine, I'll find out tomorrow. I have the Horton Stol and this should only enhance the performance and stability of that kit. Flying the Monster with these wing tips was amazing, especially on landing. They also claim to increase cruise speed at higher altitudes, we'll see. Thanks for all the confidence on the Rosen's Steve. :-) I hope I like them. After spending that much money do I have a choice?

Seats and Carpet
What more can I say.........

I wouldn't let anyone sit in it

I like it! And I agree, I wouldn't let Bowdish sit in it either!:D

That's what I meant!! :D :D :D

Herb has been busy, and gone, so I know he hasn't seen any progress. However, there has been some. I have been working with his A&P/IA, and we actually have gotten a few things finished. The new winglets are on. These really are huge, but very light. They are made out of carbon fiber. There is a lot of matching holes, to make sure they line up, but they are now on.

As part of the upgrade, Herb got new LED position lights, and brighter strobes. Or maybe his old ones were just weak :D In any event, the position lights use clear lenses, and rely on the LED to give the correct coloring.

We also got the boom fairings on. These are also carbon fiber, and huge. There is quit a bit of work involved with getting these in exactly the correct position. Then fastened. We observed that in some places the boom fairing edges would lay up against a rivet. Herb talked to Owen Bell, and he gave advice on how to remedy that. The end result is very clean.

With the comments on the Skymaster that went down in the Artic, Herb got cold weather inlet restrictors, and these are mounted. As well as insulating the crankcase ventilation line.

One of the pieces that connects the stut to the wing (strut fairing) was cracked, and generally in poor shape, so that has been replaced. Getting the old one off was easy. Getting the new one on, was very difficult.

We still have to mount the window in the door, and a couple other things, but we are close.

Here's a picture of the strut fairing piece. It really looks nice.

The insulation for the engine vent came out really well, too.

I can sit in it now, because the new interior has been removed so the paint shop doesn't mess it up. :D

To the Paint Shop
 

Friday 2JF got a test flight. All went well when I finally got it started. After sitting since November and many times cycling the master switch for various tests and flaps etc. the battery has taken a beating. Even though we had charged the battery it was still not 100% when I arrived to perform the test flight. So after I did a thorough pre-flight, I pulled it outside the hanger and jumped in to start the engines. I used my normal technique and it fired but just didn't stay running long enough for me play with the throttles and work the mixtures to try to keep it running. When I tried it again there was not enough juice left to fire it. OK back to remove the cowling and the battery box cover to hook up the battery charger and wait for the charge to complete. After finishing some tasks I decided that the battery should have enough and re-installed the battery box top and cowling. Back in the saddle I again used my normal technique and again it would not cooperate. So back to the same routine to charge the battery again. Third try is the charm, right? Well by this time Larry had shown up coming home from work and I told him my dilemma and I said that I was just going to use my normal technique one more time. I hopped in and it fired up so quickly that it was like I had never had a problem. Anyway I think we will check the battery a little closer when we finish the annual after the paint job.

It was fun to fly with all the new stuff. Wing tips, boom fairings, nice comfy seats, lots of other things and it all worked fine. After a couple of landings and take offs it was apparent that it was handling different. In a good way though, very stable in slow flight. One observation was a heavier elevator with the boom fairings. I could tell when the rear engine was producing power by the feel of the elevator. Not a bad thing just a little different than before. I will need some more time before I can really give a good report. I took Larry around his runway pattern for 2 landings and then my IA went around with me once while Larry took some video and pictures. Enough for the test flight, we came back and pulled the cowling for inspection and readied the aircraft for the trip to Sturgis Saturday morning to the paint shop.

Flight was great on Saturday to Sturgis. I had Doug my partner in the Twinco pick me up. I will return to the paint shop on Wednesday to see the starting progress. The paint tech says 3 weeks and it's done. I told him it had to be ready for Branson fly in. That's my deadline. I have decided on paint scheme #3 see below and a picture outside Larry's hanger before we went to the paint shop.

This is the end of this thread and stay tuned for the new paint thread to come soon!

Herb,

Wonderful job. If I may, I would like to offer one last piece of advice: Have you considered permanently installing the wires of a BatteryMinder to your battery? I have taken the cowling off one too many times, and finally I installed the wires. The connector piece is now tie-wrapped to the oil dipstick stalk, so that it can be connected very easily without removing the cowling. The rest of the wires is securely tie-wrapped along with other wires running towards the firewall. I put my battery on the Minder about 3-4 times a year.

One request: I would love to see a pic of your new wingtips from the FRONT, please.

Winglets
 

I added one more picture of the winglet straight on.

Here is about the best shot looking forward right now. I can get you a better shot later.

How about Twin Tails with 5 engines.................

The only flying Japanese Zero around, amazing aircraft when you really look at it

Or triple tails on a C6614, rare Cessna conversion modified by Twin Skymaster entrepreneur

Thanks, Herb.

Now, if someone can just figure out a way to make those winglets with HID landing lights in them, that would be awesome!!