Figure 1

Introduction. What Are We Talking About

It's a dream of a lot of our fellow simmers to have a cockpit of their very own, to fly to places and make this virtual adventure have more reality to it. Many simmers have built cockpits and submitted them to the web and they look great, but have a price tag in the hundreds or thousands of dollars with multiple computers or various displays or the use of a real aircraft body or one fellow using a car chassis to make a 747...wow, a car!

Some cockpits are of the Boeing jet style while others are a single seat jet fighter but while fitting the need of the simmer the limitations are greater and I find it a theme with many simulators that will not bend to various needs. I'm basically a boneyard pilot meaning I fly aircraft that are outdated and used for non VA roles such as fire bombers, bug sprayers and just vintage charter flights. These aircraft can span from a Douglas DC-3s all the way up to the Douglas C-133s...that's a pretty large range of aircraft that also includes Lockheed Connies and C-130s, Beech 18s and the Cessna 400 series. Building a cockpit that fits all the roles of a multi-role simmer becomes a matter of just dropping the authenticity and just accepting it's going to be a virtual cockpit...

Figure 2

Where Do I Start? Start With No Money!

My adventure started with a dream and the spark that ignited this mission was when my wife gave my computer desk to my son. She offered to buy me a new desk but my response was "NO", how about I make my own desk. It will look like an airplane but it's really a desk. The response was "in the basement", with an additional demand that "it will cost nothing to build too". Wow, is that a tall challenge to beat. Not really. My cockpit is completely made from salvaged wood from pallets and packing materials that by traveling through any industrial park can be found. Besides wood there is copper pipe for the yoke, a few bungy cords, variable resistors from a tape deck and old video equipment, a doorway rug, a speaker from the stereo, sheet rock screws and house paint.

Have you ever watched "Junkyard Wars" on The Learning Channel....Here's the parts just build it! Make an airplane cockpit.

I've started, but I'm in need ideas? Go look at airplanes!

First thing is to get an idea and the best way is to visit an aircraft junk yard. There is one at my local airport in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Albert Audette the President of Aircraft Repairs Unlimited took my picture along with some fine items to study (Figures 1-2). Oh, would I love to buy one and take it home but besides the size and price they are impossible to fit into the basement. Albert told me he does sell them to flightsimmers for cockpits but it's a lot of work. I agree, as I crawled through some old Cessna 172s and Piper Aztecs and sat in these carcasses. I got the feel of the dream...the feel is claustrophobic. That's the secret, it's not the computer displays, the multiple LAN fed Pentiums or if you run FS2000 or Fly! it's the tightness of the cockpit. In WWII student pilots sat in a box and were spun around and had a few gauges...it worked then.

Also look on the web. The main thing is that many simmers think these real world simulators are these complex video worlds where in fact they are a training device and can be as simple as a panel with switches. Here's a picture (Figure 3) from the USCG maintainance facility for the HU-25 Falcon. As you can see there are no multiple monitors or virtual worlds to look at; the main thing is to get the pilot to figure out how everything works. No overkill, just the basics.

Figure 4

Figure 5

OK, I had an idea but it seems difficult to build? Expect the unexpected!

My project started out as a Cessna 402 cockpit and slowly just began to lose the plan of design quickly. The center section is the 402 in design but as the windshields went in it became more like a DC-3 (Figure 4). As the sides went in it got more Connie or DC-6 in size. Basically, keep in mind it's a desk and seeing I fly all surplus aircraft it's now just a cockpit with no real theme except to run sim programs.

Figure 6

Where do you get the controls? Make them yourself. The yoke is purely based on looking at aircraft in the boneyard. This is the heart of any sim. It's not the software or the plane. If you have a bum joystick the flight of fantasy becomes just movements of a object in 3D space. I have found no joystick, analog or digital, that fits my needs. You can't make plastic act like steel...no plastic box will replace a yoke sticking out of a dash board. My yoke is made out of copper pipe, "not steel", because it was easy to solder and the fittings were left over from a plumbing job. It is mounted through the dash and is linked to potentiometers through various linkages. Figure 5 is a picture of the setup.

It looks like a mechanical nightmare and it really was. Besides using bungy cords for tension the linkage has to be tweaked so the yoke works correctly. The wire job uses 24 gauge wires and is fused. The reason is I have had a short circuit years ago with a Packard Bell system and a home brew joystick. The voltage regulator on the sound card proceeded to supply 5 amps of current to the wires and they burned (big time!). Using 1/4 amp fuses and thin wire should if any short happens be quick and break. The drawback is I've had a few flights cut short because the wire broke from the yoke movements.

On the yoke it also becomes a trick of dressing the wires with a little slack for movement. The throttle is a wipe control from a piece of video equipment but it's basically a pot on its side with a T handle and a tension brake. This is not to scale running a twin or four engine bird but for simplicity it works. For the purist I'll say the on board computer running the engine management system only requires one throttle. It will be on future Airbuses probably. The rudder pedals (Figure 6) are made from a Mad CatZ pedal unit and are expanded with external rudder pedals. The Mad CatZ uses 2-50K pots in a cross wiring pattern. Many simmers over think this by adding linkage or trying to move one pot. The Mad CatZ has each pedal with one pot and as you push each pedal it increases or decreases from the 50K ohms measured center. So actually the left pedal goes from 50K to 10K ohms if pushed and the right goes from 50K to 80K ohms if pushed.

Figure 7

The sound system consists of a big speaker under the dash for engine rumble and the PC speakers act as high end. The rumble speaker located above the pedals gets its sound from an old stereo amp mounted in the center console; being all plywood construction the speaker vibrates through the whole cockpit and is picked up in the (copper) yoke...try that with a plastic joystick. Using the BIGBIRD sound file makes Connie flights come alive.

Putting it all together, the floor is a giant shipping pallet with furniture wheels added and other disassembled pallets slowly built the outer structure. All the salvaged plywood supplied to build the seats and another little neat device that the sim world needs, the caddy (Figure 7). How many of you have the stick on the desk or even stick it between your legs and try to shoot down BF-109s in CFS? Pretty tiring! I have used these for years now. Basically build a box to mount the joystick on, put it in front of your desk chair and build another for the throttle too.

The center console (Figure is the heart of the unit and supports all the shelving to hold the monitors, computers and other equipment. The boxy construction and 2x4s have a purpose though. Possibly in the future 2-3 computers will be connected though a LAN system and run front and side view monitors and basically though not correct the heavy construction allows the mounting of SVGA monitors for these views.

Are We There Yet? No Only Half Way!

This project is not even close to being done but rather is an ongoing project. At any time I can work on it or shut it off and walk away for a week; it does not spoil or need gas.

The keyboards (Figure 9) are mounted over head and work out great for flightsim use...always a button over your head to push. The yoke has a piece of plexiglas to hold FAA sectional charts and a magazine holder is to the left to hold all my other charts. Once again this may or may not be correct but you can always reach over and pull an FAA airport directory or chart out in flight. Add a old Cessna microphone and a head set and a piece of pipe insulation across the dash and she starts to look like an airplane desk.

Figure 8

Figure 9

The roof center panel has switches and lights and will operate in the future but for now it's more ornamental. It comes down to just building it...the desk is 40 inches wide and 60 inches long without the seat (basically a double pallet), so it's not really larger than a office desk and stands no higher then the back of a computer center. It has wheels so you can move it to vacuum behind it or remove panels for maintenance. And by the end of this how to you may think it's not authentic or it's not a 747 but I never intentioned it to be anything more than an airplane desk.

Pete Kodis
straker@flightsim.com

Cockpit web site:
http://home.attbi.com/~fs-cockpitsimulator

Bone yard pictures and flying old planes in FS sims:
http://home.attbi.com/~fs-boneyard