Beautiful but without a function... the trimmers. I will not convert them to work with the simulator. They are looking good and that's fine.
One can turn the handle and the pointer in the display moves, just like in the old times. The glasses of the displays are made from CD cases... I needed something transparent but not too thick.
You gotta have good ideas....

Well... this whole project is a difficult task but this thing here will be the most complicated part of them all.

I don't know how the people from Lockheed put this thing together but some parts are not made to disassemble again. Not a single piece can be removed without removing two or three other parts before. And you need a around-the-corner screwdriver and a 3/8" rubber-wrench... :-)

... or 20 atomic powered micro chinese to get to the screws from inside...

I wonder how they managed it to install or change the steel cables. I'm really glad I don't have to do that!

On the last picture you can see the first finished lever (wing flaps). The housing is already cleaned... that was a sticky job. Today I already painted two throttle levers.

I still don't know how I will install the computer-interface-potentiometers but for nostalgic reasons it will be something with cords and wires.

Heute hab ich den Glare Shield wieder im Cockpit eingebaut... hab ganz vergessen, dass noch nicht alle Fensterschrauben montiert waren, so hat sich das um eine Stunde verzögert. Die musste ich schliesslich zuerst anbringen, nachher kommt man nicht mehr ran. So ist das eben wenn man "mal schnell" was machen will.
Zur Entspannung habe ich dann zuhause das rechte Pedal verdrahtet (dabei kann man schön Musik hören) und den kleinen Magnetkompass gereinigt und die Beleuchtung repariert. Nettes Teil, so einen muss ich mal für's Auto organisieren...

Kleiner Nachtrag... ich habs geschafft, dass jetzt jeder seinen Kommentar abgeben kann.

Bisher war das nur anderen Bloggern möglich aber ich hab jetzt die Einstellungen geändert. (Es war so langweilig ohne die dummen Sprüche... :-))

So.... endlich ist das erste Pedal fertig. Das Potentiometer montiert und die Kabel sind angeschlossen.
Es hat sich mal wieder bewiesen, dass die kleinen "nur noch schnell" Arbeiten immer länger dauern als man zuerst denkt. Alleine die weisse Rolle mit dem Aluwinkel hat etwa 2 Stunden Arbeit gekostet. Ich hab natürlich die Luxusausführung gewählt, Rolle handgedreht, Achse aus Messing ebenfalls... nur die Schrauben sind gekauft.
Dafür hatte ich es mit der silbernen Rolle weiter hinten einfach, sie stammt aus dem Computerschrott. Ich musste sie nur mit einer Holzschraube befestigen, alles andere war bereits dran.
Die Feder auf der anderen Seite des Potis stammt aus der Schublade mit Ersatzteilen für alte Rechenmaschinen aus dem Geschäft. Gut habe ich die bei einer Firmenübername vor dem Schrottcontainer gerettet. Ich wusste doch, dass man immer wieder mal ein Federchen braucht.

Matt sei dank! Matt...? Wer ist denn Matt? Tja, das ist wohl der verrückteste Simulatorbastler der Welt. Dank seiner Homepage www.mattssimulator.com bin ich auf die Idee gekommen wie ich die originalen Instrumente für den Sim benützen kann. Schaut euch seine Seite mal an aber haltet euch fest... alleine die "Basement Tour" könnte euch vom Hocker hauen. Leider hat er keinen Mail-Link, ich hätte mich gerne bei ihm bedankt.

Viele Instrumente im Cockpit laufen mit sogenannten Synchros. Wenn man zwei solche Synchros richtig miteinander verbindet, dann kann man den einen drehen und der andere läuft synchron mit. Verbindet man nun einen Synchro mit einem Frensteuer-Servo von Simkits (www.simkits.com), dann kann man ihn per Computer steuern und somit auch das Instrument das dran hängt.
Das einzige Problem ist, dass man eine Spannungsuelle braucht, die 26 Volt bei 400 Hertz liefert, denn mit dieser Spannung laufen fast alle mechanischen Anzeigen in Flugzeugen. Ich habe das Problem mit einem Verstärker (schwarze Kiste im Bild) und einem Tongenerator gelöst. Für den Simulator muss ich mir noch einen Oszillator basteln... den Verstärker übernehme ich so wie er ist, der liefert 400 Watt, das sollte genügen.

Los Pedalos sind so gut wie fertig... nur das Potentiometer muss noch richtig befestigt werden. Das ist übrigens das teuerste Poti, das ich je gekauft habe, es hat 60 Franken gekostet aber es läuft dafür supersmooth. Es soll ja auch eine Weile funktionieren, da darf es schon etwas kosten.
Die Pedalanlage ist mal wieder ein gutes Beispiel für aktives Recycling. Die Gasdruckfedern stammen von grossen Druckern, die Rollen aus einer HP Optical Disk Jukebox und die Gleitschienen sind aus einem 19-Zoll Rack und haben einst grosse Disks von Fujitsu getragen. Nur das Drahtseil ist neu und stammt aus dem Veloladen.... und das Brett... von Migros.
Die Schalter für die Bremsen sind induktive Näherungssensoren die reagieren, sobald das Pedal gedrückt wird. Sie stammen aus der Greifhand eines Tape-Roboters.

The Wing Fighter from Star Wars part 17? Assault of the Zylons? Nooo, totally wrong, this is the so called glare-shield which is installed above the pilots instruments. Integrated in it are red and white illumination lights. Underneath the bumps left and right are the light regulators, the rheostats.
It was not easy to get red lightbulbs of this size but with some pieces of color film for stage lights did the job too.

The first computer is ready. Let's see what the dual core pentium is able to do. The front cover is painted in "Connie Avionics" black. The computers will be installed in the radio rack and take the place of the radios which were installed there in the early days.



Oh... Doctor, what is it...? Congratulations! It's a pedal.... Quadruplets to be precise. Of course all the mechanics for steering and braking is still missing but it will come soon.

Today it was time for the small parts... I removed the nuts from the windshield frames and polished each one... 280 pieces! Now the inside of the cockpit can be painted and it will certainly look great with all the shiny nuts.
I know, there are some machines that polish such parts in no time but I don't have one. This way I had some work for another 2 hours... I don't want to run out of work ;-)

An important part has been added... the platform for the pilots seats. This time I welded it myself and I think it came out very well, even if I'm still a beginner in welding.
As one can see, I removed the glareshield, the cover above the instrument panels. It will be cleaned, sanded and painted.... black on the top and Lockheed-green on th underside. The illumination regulators will be rewired and the bulbs replaced.

Something for the specialists... The cockpit will not be built to the original width because this would be 2.80m or more at the rear wall. But I want to have it transportable and this requires a maximum size of 2.50m or it will be a special oversize transport with authorization by the police.... far too complicated.
So, it needed to make a compromise between the original size and userfriendlyness.

Enough motorbiking.... now I have some vacation ant time to build. It is amazing what one can do in one day. I started cutting the wood parts at 10:30 and at 20:00 the whole framework was finished... including lunch break and driving to the hobby center for small parts.

SUMMER BREAK! Or did you think I'm sitting in my workshop with this nice weather? No, I rather make a little trip with my bike and show the other bikers what such a Milwaukee old iron is able to do.
The footrests are getting thinner in every curve :-)

My new joystick... is almost finished, just a few steel cables and a potentiometer are missing. I decided to use a more expensive potentiometer for which the data sheed promises a lifetime of 10'000'000 movements. Let's hope it's true.

The NAV-COMM panel lights up. All whells oiled, lamps replaced... The display illumination consists of two extra bright LED's now because the original lamps are not available anymore. And the VOLume knob is now made of aluminum because the old plastic knob is broken during the disassembly.
If there are no spare parts, one has to make them.

ADF Panel by night.... no further comment.

An actual picture of my workbench. The NAV-COM panel lies here in parts and waits for reassembling. WD40 did miracles again and re-liquified the dried grease. After cleaning it's a job for the red Neoval oil because WD40 evaporates much too quickly. It is great to clean stuff but for a longtime lubrication it is not suitable.

Let it roll! The frame is welded together, many thanks to Reto Meier for helping with this. The next step will be to cut lots of wood. The cockpit fragment and all the other parts will be mounted on profiles made of plywood. This makes it possible to create any desired shape I like, no matter if curved or straight. At the end everything will be covered with aluminum sheets screwed to the plywood profiles and the Connie gets a nice fuselage. We will see..... it's the first airplane I'm building. ;-)

The automatic direction finder (ADF) panel. It seems it was standing in the rain for some time. The numbers of the display were completely stuck and rusty. That much about "aluminum does not rust"... well it's true, it is just called differently.

But now it works again and when I get the lamps from the USA, it will light up like new. And that's all it has to do.

A number riddle.... This is the rear side of an illuminated plexiglass panel. One can see clearly the manufacturing date NOV 13 1957. That means the airplane must be manufactured at that date or later. But the serial number on the panel is 4402 and HI-548CT has S/N 4202.... is it a mistake or was the panel changed somewhen...? Will we ever know?

That much can happen in half an hour. Washing with water, cleaning with alcohol and polishing with "the green stuff". Then painting the letters with white water paint and the ugly panel looks almost like new.

The "green stuff" is Knorrostol polishing paste. A real sercet tip for everything that must be cleaned and polished. Metal plastic.... whatever, it's a real wonder stuff.

Last week I have not worked much on the simulator because my red moster needed some attention. Removing all the RV stuff and make room for future projects. The rear door needed an electric actuator for loking it up from the drivers seat because I want to install a wall between the cargo compartment and the "cockpit" :-)

A new part... This window worried me a bit because it was broken. Fortunately these windows have three layers of glass and plexiglass. So I could remove the good inner glass (10mm thick) and use it again.

Heavy Metal!!! Yeah man, the Super Connie Simulator Chassis Kit (SCSCK) has arrived. All parts prcisely cut to my specifications and now it's WELDING TIME!... but it has to wait until Easter is over.

I can only say... I want to take it in my hands and fly away. But that must wait a little bit. One should not blow ones owne trumpet but these steering wheels are really cool.
Some bake cakes on their birthday, I polish Connie wheels.... everyone what he can best.

Let it shine, let it shine, lehehet it shiiiine..... I'm happy that I have painted them! Just letting the paint dry now and them some polishing. I bet they have never been so shiny even new.

4 layers of paint... 3 hours of work... including a chat and two beers ;-)

Most wanted.... The Constellation steering wheel hub cap with Lockheed logo. This was the first item that has been stolen from all the Connies besides of the clocks. Now I made two new ones... 4 hours on the lathe and they were finished. I must admit that I lost most of the time by sawing the 80mm aluminum bar in small pieces... by hand! I would be thankful for an electric metal saw...

July 18.: I bought an electric saw and now it is fun to cut stuff like this.

Before.... after....

After 2 hours of grinding, scraping and polishing, the steering wheel shines like new. I'd like to leave it like this instead of painting it black. But even if it looks very nice in silver, it is not original.

By the way, I noticed that the Connie steering wheel has the same diameter like the wheel in my VW Bug.... that would look cool if I'd put it in my car! But a VW steering wheel in a Connie cockpit looks also funny :-)

As I said before... "there is some beauty under the dirt"
The first panel is finished. The switches are polished and tested, illumination is repaired and the metal parts in original color painted.

Hard to believe if you compare it with the panel on the picture before.

This is how everything will look at the end. The whole cockpit will look like new or maybe better... who knows...

That how the stuff looks that I got. Rather bad on the first sight... and on the second too. But the eye of a 'professional' sees the beauty that lies somewhere underneath the dirt. It will be a lot of work to get it to the surface...

After George the hurricane came Francisco the pilot and gave the airplane the rest... fortunately! There would not much be left if he had not taken the stuff with him.

That's how it looked shortly after the storm. The Commando must have crashed with their wing into the Connie, almost cut it in half.

4.4.2006 a bit later...

It works! Now I can tell you the story of "Project 2".

Project 1 is of course the complete, real and flying Breitling Super Constellation, one of only three left in airworthy condition in the whole world. The Australians have one, the Americans have one... and the Swiss have one too. More infos about that project at www.superconstellation.ch

But this blog here is about Project 2, the Super Constellation Flight Simulator, built with real 50 years old parts. Where shall I start with the story.... well let's start with Francisco. Francisco is a Pilot from Geneva who loves to spend his holidays in South America or the Carribean just to fly old airplanes.
He flies with meat over the Andes or with fruits from Santo Domingo to Florida just because... just for fun.
The first Super Connie he flew was the HI-548CT of the dominican air transport company AeroChago. This airplane was destroyed by hurricane George in 1998. The wind lifted another airplane ( a Curtiss Commando) from ground and threw it onto the Connie.
1999 Francisco bought the wreck and removed all the usable parts such as the entire cockpit.

Well... these parts lie now in my workshop awaiting their restauration and the assembly to a flight simulator.

4.4.2006 This is the first official post... let's see if it works.