I am looking for a source, or the source, for extremely light pilots made from foam. In the past I have used some that weighed as little as 0.5 oz.

Of course, I don't recall where I got them or who makes them etc.

Before I raised this note, I tried a ton of web-searches but combinations of model foam pilot scale pilot etc. did not get me the right hits!

I find the ARF supplied pilots to be very heavy and just dead weight in a model plane. The trouble is that a plane without a pilot just looks plain wrong.

Any pointers are appreciated.

Regards,

Eric.

Hanger 9 has a nice line of pilots. You need to paint them, its not hard it just takes time. Mike

I tried the Horizon site but the pilots were a bit too heavy.

The trip through the Horion site gave me the idea of doing "searches" on the sites of the major mail-order companies. I finally found a 9 gm 3" high pilot in the Hobby Lobby site.

Thank you for the lead in the first place. I was stuck in google-mode.

Regards,

Eric.

If you dont need a ton of detail I made pilots for e-jets and prop jets with green -foam found at the craft stores for silk flower arrangement bases .
You can virtually sand the pilot to shape , the stuff is great . Then simply paint it with basic model paints .Its great for pilots with totallu closed helmits . If you really good you can carve a face out but it taked practice .
In my larger scale plane I always hollow out the bodies with a drill and some tools , painful on the pilot but after all war is painful !!!!!

There's always a ton of them for sale at Toledo, and they're all butt ugly and more expensive than they are worth. Not sure who makes them, but wow, can't someone do better? Chip Hyde has some with helmets that look nice, but are expensive.

One more suggestion , Century Jet now has a ton listed on tower hobbies

we tried to find a slimline joe pilot and gave up.bought a can of spray window tint from our lhs and tinted the canopy of my brother's p51.it looks good and you can't even tell that there's no pilot.

Hub Hobby in Richmond Minn has the joe pilots .

Glue images to either side of 1/4" foam board, blacken edges with mmarker (or color to suit), paint whole thing with clear drying white glue (Weld Bond works for me) to fuel proof it.

Go to the Aircraft International site.

BINGO!

These were the pilots that I was looking for. Thank you. They are very light and they come in a bunch of sizes. The site gives you the info you want but you have to call them to actually place an order.

Guess what? They are in NJ too :-)


Thanks again,

Eric.