The Pepsi Skydancer was a famous aerobatic aircraft performing intricate routines with smoke and fireworks, becoming an iconic part of the North American airshow scene, with kits and graphics still available for hobbyists to this day. The Super Chipmunk is popular with the RC pilots and builders, with plans, ARF's and kits available. Carl Goldberg, Top Flight, Apache Avaition (now SLEC) and Seagull Models to name a few.
The Pepsi Skydancer customized for airshow performances powered by a Lycoming i360 with power ratings of 200hp and upwards although owners don't usually give out the actual power they are using but could be up too 350hp. Originally flown by Steve Oliver and his wife Suzanne (Skywriting), Pepsi entertained for 25 years before being taken over by Nathan Hammond and renamed it GhostWriter in 2016, who continues the tradition of performances or daytime aerobatics, skywriting and now LED illumination and night time pyrotechnics. The Pepsi Skydancer was a piece of aviation entertainment history, demonstrating impressive skill and artistry in the sky.
Nearly 3,000 man-hours over a two year period were spent on developing the GhostWriter into the finest example of a Super Chipmunk. It now boasts a cruising speed of 150mph, and a range of more than 500 miles. It will climb at a rate of 2,500 feet per minute, with a ceiling of 17,500 feet. The aircraft and its performances have become legendary, with Nathan Hammond winning the prestigious Bill Barber Award for Showmanship.
My Pepsi was built back in 2016, the 1/5th scale kit from SLEC. I built it with flaps which shortens the landing much more than Pennzoil again because the chipmunk is "floaty". Seagull Models now make a 1/5th scale version of the GhostWriter 30 to 40cc ARF but what put me off was the nice oleo landing gear are just located by four screws which means any bad landing will tear out ply and probably the ribs underneath. The SLEC kit uses 6 gauge thick piano wire locked into a double ply socket and becomes a torsion bar for suspension. So, I decided as Pepsi is no more, now is the time to upgrade Pepsi into the Ghost Writer. It did not look to be much demanding work so I went ahead. I also did not want to spend too much on it either. Read later the damage to the wallet.
First job was to put right the wing seat saddle curvature that I had inadvertently made wrong at the build stage years ago then remove the canopy by using a sharp knife to carefully slice through the clear silicon that was securing it then strip back all the fuselage white and blue covering leaving only the red areas which were in good order. The covering came off easily with some heatgun work left virtually no residue unlike Solarfilm/Monokote mentioned in the Pennzoil N114V story. Recovered the fuselage with Oracover white and the forward end with Oracover Blue 52. Next job was to apply the graphics supplied by Callie Graphics in Magdelena, New Mexico. Looking good. Although I had to make up the blue and red stripes with white stars myself using Oracover film and some white stars I had in stock due to my cock up when starting to apply then. The adhesive is good but seems to attract itself to the surface before I was ready. Bah!
Leaving the fuslelage for now I went to work on the cowl. Wet n Dry at 400 grade to get rid of most of the paint and a deep paint crack. Finally finishing with 1200 grade. Masked up to cover the blue areas and warming up a can of Appliance white gloss and attempting to get a decent temperature in the garage (why do I pick the worst time of year to do painting?) I resprayed the cowl. Left it to dry and harden overnight. Next day remask up the white and again warming up a can of blue. Originally Pepsi had the colour of Peugeot Royal Blue but I found another blue that was nearer and it was Halfords Blue S3-250 RAL. Two coats were applied and after drying time two coats of lacquer.
Next was the wing. Again I was going to get away with only stripping off the white and blue. However, with the covering now off I was now able to insert cables to power some position LED Navlights I had made up into the wing tips. Now I could move on to the main job of recovering the wing. Before that though I had to fix some small dents in the leading edge from the "incident" back 6 years ago which tore off the engine and the first two formers but I managed to rebuild it luckily.
Whilst looking again at the full size in a flight video, I noticed that the underside of the stabilser also had red and blue squares. I don't know if the full size Pepsi had them but Ghost Writer does. So, during a break I dug out the cutting board again and after making some calculations I found I needed 10 of blue and 10 of red squares 30mm x 30mm. A bit of fiddle job but the end result is worthwhile. Once I confirmed the starting point I placed the first red in position and then the other blues and reds will follow.
Today the postie delivered a big brown envelope from Callie. Spare set of decals for Ghost Writer and two replacement Ghost Writer decals for the cowl in case of a cowl repair or respray. About an hour later they were all applied which ends the work on the fuselage. Just the spats to do now. I will see if I can make good the originals which have been cracked. If not then I have prepared some new ones which are already painted in the base colour of white. As it happened I found the easiest route was to use the new prepared spats. Masking up the white to paint the red and blue. Then a lacquer coat and finally add some automotive Trim Line.
Costs just to refurb were two rolls of Oracover, numerous trials of spray can colours a new set of graphics, LED light modules, a new aluminium spinner. Total around £100.00. Not bad at all, to have what looks like a new plane without any grief from my wife - new shoes helped though!
Thank for reading. Hope your refurbs/rebuilds go well...
