Dr Jim Mullaney's Blog (6)

The base is now complete. We skinned it with 6mm MDF

And carpeted it with an old rug that was the right colour.

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Several things have been happening, but none of them really exciting. 1. We have build the platform to stand the simulator on. We used pallets. Of course, one pallet wasn't wide enough and two was too wide so we ended up cutting and the base is 1 1/2 pallets wide by 2 pallets long. The pallets are rectangular so the base is 2.4m by 1.8m. We braced them all together and screwed everything tight. Then we discussed whether or not it should be be mobile. We ummed and ahhed and decided it should. It… Continue

Well .... it's been a busy weekend. I now have all the panels done in Illustrator and I'm very happy with them. I had to guess the colour, but it seems to be pretty close. The colour I ended up with is C - 30% M - 0% Y - 10% K - 60% I took a sample printed on paper to Bunnings and they matched it quite easily. It looks lighter in the photos, but I think it's the flash. I got all the panels cut to size from MDF at Bunnings. They could only cut them square, so I had to cut the offsets with a ta… Continue

Bah!! I've been banished to the shed for construction work :o) The downside of this is that it has been too hot for construction .... so I've been concentrating on the instrument panels. The monitor side of things is sweet, thanks to echalk :o) I will probably run the following set up 19" 21" 21" 19" For the main view and scenery 17" 19"sideways 17" For the instruments I have been concentrating on the design phase for the MIP. I'll probably cut it from 3mm MDF and paint it. Whatever lettering… Continue

Things are a bit quiet on the A320 front. I have some visitors who leave today, so that will free me up a bit. I now have the panels to build the support frame for the MIP - Main Instrument Panel. Construction on that will start next week. Once we've built that, I'll post some photos.

The most difficult part of the MIP will be making it look realistic. We'll go with MDF cut out according to the real thing. The monitors behind it should be impressive. The lettering is proving to be prob

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My son Joe is training to be a commercial pilot. I've always been interested in aviation and flying. We both enjoy Microsoft FSX. I thought the next step would be to make the setup a bit more realistic ... add rudder pedals, etc.
Then I started reading about the simpit community and realised that building a realistic looking (and functioning) cockpit was achievable. We chose the Airbus 320 for several reasons.

1. It uses a sidestick rather than a yoke-style control. This should be m… Continue