Dissappearing a skinned pilot ?

Hi all,I created a 'skinned mesh' pilot for my aircraft, he has a biped inside as usual and it all works fine in FSX.When I attach some visibility code to that pilot, even using an intermediate 'dummy' box or whatever as a parent, the pilot is shown in FSX grotesquely distorted. OK sez I, I will do away with the visibility code and use the age old technique of hiding the pilot inside the plane or beneath ground by means of animating a parent part. When I tried this, I get the same grotesque distortion issue with the skinned mesh pilot, so, it's not the code (I was sure it was!).Has anybody experienced this before ? Any ideas to try ? I'd really like to 'disappear' my pilot when the plane is all shut down and pitot covers are on etc.Thanks.TAG67