A320 Project - a man of letters

[Dr Jim Mullaney]

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 problematic. If I had a spare couple of thousand bucks, I'd head over to www.flightdecksolutions.com and order their complete panel kit. Vacuum-formed, backlit, the whole nine yards. It's beautiful!!! But this is a prototype. Maybe if it all works really well, I'd consider something like it for the next generation. However, not in this iteration :o)

So that leaves us with the lettering problem. I've been researching on vinyl lettering. It can look pretty effective and it's quite cheap. The hard part is finding someone who can make small enough letters. The panel label lettering is about 4mm high - too small for most sign-makers I've asked. However, Signwave in Belmont seem to think they can do it. I'll keep you posted. If that falls through, I may have to use white lettering on clear adhesive tape. Not ideal, but it should be ok. I've already said that we probably won't be back-lighting the panels. Back-lighting looks really cool, but it adds a level of complexity and cost that we're not prepared for this time round. I have ordered some luminous paint, and will play around with that to see if it improves things.

Cheers,

DrJim