5ft tall and fly a Champ?

[Rich Valler]

Are there any 5ft Champ pilots out there? If so, do you simply use cushions to bring your seating position forward and/or upward, but still manage to get full aft stick when required? Or have you designed some way of adding extensions to the rudder pedals?

What is undoubtedly one of the two best Champs in the UK (sadly mine is at least third, should you ask...) has recently been bought by a group of three, one of whom is a petite lady of about 5 foot, currently flying a Tiger Moth, who wishes to be closer to the pedals in the front seat of the Champ. A permanent change to the pedals would not be feasible as the other members are taller. I should mention that UK Champs are operated on a Permit to Fly, which is close to Experimental in the USA; consequently modifications can be a little easier to achieve.

I would point the lady towards the wealth of knowledge on this forum, but she has no computer ... nor indeed a television!

Any experiences would be welcome.
Thanks
Rich

[Roger Anderson]

That is pretty short and Champs do have a long reach...unlike Chiefs. I'm 5'6" and always used a cushion or two behind me, but she would need much more it sounds like. I guess first, start putting cushions behind/under until she is comfortable and see then how stick effectiveness is affected. Even rudder pedal extentions, which I can't really picture some that would be easily removable for other members, would still leave the heel brake issue.

[Paul Agaliotis]

Rich,
We have a little device that runs the interconnect cable around three pullies. The center one is a large diameter that deflects the cable to run around the pully's. This shortens the cable length by deflection. Takes about 1min to install and 30sec to remove.
Paul

[Aerco]

If she can fly a Tiger Moth at 5', she could fly anything. Even at 6' you're totally blind in a Tiger.