One of the crustiest of the crusty of all the Aviators I have known called me the other day and asked me to make him a wall mount for a yoke off his old aircraft, the C-141 Starlifter.
This guy is one of the saltiest son of a you know whats you'll ever meet--he has more than twice as many flight hours as I do and is still, unlike me, going strong. He was honored in a recent article when he passed 10,000 hours in the Air (I've only known 2 other men that have done that)
http://www.acc.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123217479
Anyway, here is the mount I came up with-- he wanted is small and simple and without a name on it as he is going to have to find a place to put it on his wall (which is covered floor to ceiling in awards, lithos, flags, tail flashes, etc.) He was in the old 4th Airlift squadron when it flew C-141s and this was off of an old aircraft he flew in that he has since found in the boneyard here at Davis Monthan. (don't ask me how he got the yolk...old Senior NCOs just seem to find a way)
Anyway, I kept it simple-- Mahogany with a cherry finish. I fiddled around with the design for a while and finally ended up going the dingbat route versus the DXF route-- for some reason it just worked better. From design to finished took about 2-hours
Thanks for looking,
Lawrence