Taking Shape

Well I promised everybody some pictures of the framework for my sim and here they are!!! We recently cut out the base out of chipboard and shaped it so the footwell has a curve on both sides. Which makes it seem a bit mor like you are sitting in a cessna rather than the walls being completely straight. Looks really good but it has given us a bit more working out to do, dimensions wise. Oh well. We had to place the backplate (the aluminium cutout you see in the pictures) on two side pieces of wood to see meaure some dimensions. More work will be done at some point. Unfortunately I'm working some very silly hours on the new series of Doctor Who at the moment so my time at the moment is pretty limited. Hopefully I will have some free time soon to start work on the complete construction. Bye for now.

Thank you to everyone who leaves me comments. It's very much appreciated. Keep them coming! A big part of why I got into flight simulation and the hobby of pit building is because of the fantatsic community spirit, worldwide!
Constuction of the simulator cockpit structure began last Tuesday. Me and my good old Dad (a retired TV engineer who builds house extensions as a hobby! No joke!) bought a load of wood from a D.I.Y store and started building it from the ground up, from our very shoddy drawings! However it looks great so far and we are starting to see the whole picture now. I will post pictures here as soon as possible.
I've also started designing an avionics stack based around Garmin's GNS530. Thanks too Tuomas and Mike (fellow Cessna 172 builders) for this one. I had an idea about building something similar to Simkit's radio stack ages ago (the one they sell is a work of art but too expensive for me) but then dropped it after running into too many difficulties. I came accross RealityXP's 530/430XP software and thought of just stripping an LCD out of its casing attaching it to the avionics bay and using a mouse and keyboard for the input. However, Tuomas and Mike showed me pictures of what they had built and my imagination just run riot. They have both done sterling work and I would like to follow suit. I have some dimensions of the real stack from Garmin and have found the perfect 5" LCD monitor from Sharp to use. Hopefully it will all come together. I'll start som preliminary drawings using Adobe Illustrator and see how it goes.

What The Hell Am I Doing


I have to admit that I first had this idea under the influence of alcohol!!! It all started in August 2004. While my girlfriend was doing her elective (She's a Doctor) in Toronto, Canada, I was feeling rather lonely and also missing her very much, I decided to have a few glasses of wine..well actually a bottle of wine, to drown myself in my sorrows. So, while sitting in front of the computer and looking very intreaged at the instruments on offer at www.simkits.com, while sipping my Merlot, I decided to click on the "Buy Now" button. How I even managed to fill in my card details in that state is still a total mystery. MY GOSH WHAT HAVE I DONE!!!! I cried!
My instrument came after 3 days and I was mightily impressed with Simkits's product and their service. But what turned out to be one drunken night of stupidity, became one hell of a great idea... And I wanted more! Until my girlfriend came home that is. She was surprisingly calm about it all. "You're making a what?!!!???" "How much?" "Well it's going nowhere near the house!!!" is some of the questions I had to answer. But she eventually came round...Umm... kind of. In fairness, Bethan has been absolutely marvellous with my insane hobby and she even picked some instruments for my birthday!
So here I am. Actually what I should be saying is here WE are. Because my father has been with me on this every step of the way. Quite honestly we have been building this together and he has been the complete driving force in the construction of this project. Without him the project would be grounded (pun intended). So here it is. A daily (weekly, monthly, yearly if at all) account of the construction of my Cessna 172 Simulator. And as I have to explain to everyone who asks me about it...YES. I am MAD.