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Racks and racks of plastic molds and pre-formed parts line the plant at Vantage Plane Plastics, in Alva, Oklahoma. The faint aroma of hot Lustran wafts around as a handful of workers quietly shape parts for aircraft from Cessna, Piper, and Beechcraft—among others.

The original plastic interior parts on the 1977 Cessna Cardinal we’re refurbishing, like the plastic in most Cessnas of the era, are composed of Lustran (albeit an earlier version of the plastic, with a lower rubber content and therefore less stability and flexibility). The material can be formed into nearly any shape when heated to a temperature of about 275 degrees. That’s great when you’re a manufacturer and need a cost-effective way to mold plastic—all you need is a wooden or metal mold, a vacuum chamber, and the raw material and you’re in business. Upgraded materials in the last 30 years have led to better, longer-lasting components.

However, these trim components still remain thermally active after their creation: Any pilot who has experienced the corn-popping heat of a GA cockpit in the summer—or the digit-freezing cold in the winter—is familiar with the temperature extremes that their interior plastic is subject to. And the contracting and expanding with these extremes can lead to warping and cracking.

That’s why, back in November and December of 2006 when we disassembled the Cardinal, Danny Rexroad of Classic Aircraft Maintenance, and Earl Clements of Air Wrench and crew stacked and catalogued the reams of Lustran with questions about what we would do with it all. Surely we wouldn’t re-use a scrap of it, because over the 30 years it had been installed in N18729, the white, blue, and black plastic had stained and faded and warped and cracked in too many places to count.

We’d been in contact with Tyson Tucker, of Plane Plastics, from the beginning of the project, and he was enthusiastic about what the company could do for the Cardinal—after all, the 177 models have more interior plastic parts than any other Cessna single. Right off the bat, he offered AOPA a complete set of interior components, gratis. Great news—we knew we’d need it.

Then he went one better: “How about if you bring the airplane out to Alva, and we install the plastic ourselves?”

It turns out that Vantage Plane Plastics, which obtained the line of Cardinal interior parts with the acquisition of Kinzie Industries in 2000, had been wanting to tweak its plastic kit for the airplane to provide a better fit in the field for these parts. The company had another Cardinal—a 1976 RG—slated for the initial round of testing in spring 2007. Tucker was delighted to get his hands on a fixed-gear model so they could put the finishing touches on the upgrade.

Since the theme of the Catch-A-Cardinal project has been to go above and beyond, Field Project Manager Dan Gryder and I figured that Tucker’s plan meshed well with our vision, and we jumped at the opportunity. With the interior refurbishment the last major stop on our project timeline, we waited until this month to start the plastic replacement process.

Taking shape
I took a tour of the Plane Plastics facility after I arrived with the Cardinal in early August. The offices sit above the main plant, which is at the southeast corner of the airport in Alva. Installation takes place in a series of maintenance hangars nearby.

In addition to the improved materials, Plane Plastics also sculpts its parts from thicker plastic—while the original parts were generally formed from .06-inch thick material, Plane Plastics forms its from .09-inch plastic. Some parts benefit from the additional strength found in .115-inch thick material.

It was a good thing we saved all the interior plastic—every airplane is a tiny bit different, particularly since they have been flown and exposed to the elements over (in the case of the Cardinal) three decades. Plane Plastics uses the old plastic to ensure a precise fit for our parts—and to develop molds for parts that might not have been in its repertoire. If you plan an interior refurbishment, you should hang onto all your interior components until you’re sure you have good replacements—or can repair to your satisfaction the ones you took out. As tempting as it is to throw that cracked plastic away, don’t do it! The part you save may save someone else’s bacon—from a restoration perspective—particularly if you have an older or orphaned airplane model.

A special note about the Cardinal—one of the behind the scenes reasons for Plane Plastics’ interest in the Catch-A-Cardinal project was, as noted above, to tweak its molds for the model. This is primarily because the interior parts on the Cardinal have been notoriously ill fitting over the years. The progression of models each have a handful of unique parts—so there can be orphaned parts within a set of interior parts. By using the Catch-A-Cardinal as a template, Plane Plastics will be one step closer to having a complete solution for the interior plastic on the Cardinal model series.

Starting to install
Though we’re starting from scratch with new plastic, it pays to take a good look at the old parts and see where cracks and deformations have occurred. With this knowledge, we can reinforce the plastic in critical places, and add additional mounting holes where pieces have sagged in the past.

When the folks at Plane Plastics took delivery of the Cardinal, the first steps were to remove a couple of key items. First, the seat belts came out, and were shipped off to Aviation Safety Products, in Blairsville, Georgia, for rewebbing. Aviation Safety Products has donated this process to the project—and for those of you who asked at Oshkosh, yes, the belts won’t be blue anymore, they’ll be a pretty beige to match the seats. Alamo Plating, of Converse, Texas, will be replating the seat belt hardware with a Satin Nickel finish—a rich-looking upgrade to the stock fittings and buckles.

We’re also tweaking the electroluminescent subpanels—Air Capitol Dial, of Wichita, Kansas, which produces panels for many major aircraft manufacturers, including Cessna—is making final adjustments to our subpanels while the airplane is offline for the interior. We’re not happy until it’s all just right, and Air Capitol Dial has been fantastic to work with as we’ve asked for some final changes.

And so the installation begins, with a test fit of the pieces into the airplane. Next, the pieces are trimmed, and then painted. These pieces will seal up the wires and ducting that I’ve been looking at for the last 40 hours of flying—but even in their unpainted form the plastic looks so clean and sharp I know that I’ll hardly miss that behind-the-scenes view.

E-mail the author at julie.boatman@aopa.org.

For the time being, Plane Plastics offers more than 3,000 FAA/PMA parts, including aftermarket interior parts for Cessna, Piper, Beechcraft, and other light GA airplanes. In addition, the company is the OEM interior plastic supplier to the Quartz Mountain Aerospace 11E. For more information, call 866/307-5263, or visit the Web site.