A cockpit? A cockpit!

It looks like a real cockpit....

This is the actual state of my cockpit. The flight engineers desk is installed and the lower instrument panel too. Also the main junction box panels (left of the F/E desk) are all finished and installed.

I discovered that the steering columns have been too short and it was not possible to sit and to put the feet on the pedals because the steering wheel was in the way. This turned out to be a mayor problem because it did not help just to make the columns longer, the wheels would touch the glare shield.
The problem was that the columns in the real Connie are not just moving forth and back but forward/down and bachwards/up because the turning point is located under the pilots seats and not directly below the column vertical axis.

So I had to rebuild almost the entire steering unit. I made the columns a bit longer and added a different hinge to move the turning point backwards. I think this will solve the problem.... it must, because it was a lot of work to do.

The next step will be to re-install the unit and I hope it's good now.

Fuses

Main Junction Box Nr.3 panel...

Todays work, the MJB No.3 panel is finished. 57 circuit breakers, one switch and 119 screws, everything cleaned and polished, taken apart and rebuilt. It was an easy work but it needed much time and patience...

Bending wood

Two more parts...

Today I installed the instrument rack and the Master Junction Box sidepanel. The instrument rack is still hanging on some cords, it will be installed correctly later. First I have to cut away a bit of the wooden frame on the right side. That's because my cockpit is a bit narrower than the original, so I have to cheat a bit.... at the end all this will be covered and invisible. ;-)

And again...

One part more in the cockpit....

It looks more and more like a Connie cockpit.

Plexiglass manufacturing

Protect the switches...

The propeller feathering switches deserve some protection. They are 50 years old and they have an important function, it is not a good idea to push them if it is not necessary.

In the simulator they have no more function but the Plexiglass covers are looking too good to leave them away. Unfortunately only two of these covers have survived the disassembly in the caribbean and the transport to Switzerland. The fragment in front of the cover is what it was left from the Nr.1 cover, this one I had to re-manufacture completely. On the Nr.2 cover the parts on both sides were missing.... a partial re-manufacturing was necessary.
Nr.3 was the only undamaged and Nr.4 has a crack, but I leave it as it is, it looks more authentic like this :-)

For those who don't know what a "propeller feathering" button does...

In case you have to shut down an engine during flight, you have to "feather" the propeller of that engine. That means the propeller bades are turned out of the wind, facing the egde forward. Otherwise it would present a large obstacle for the airflow and it could cause the engine to windmill. That means the airflow is turning the propeller and that's not good for an already damaged engine.

Flight engineers delight

Looks better than before....

Christmas vacation, time to.... to make old scrap look like new! Remember the sad appearance of the flight engineer desk? Well just look at the older pictures. A bit of paint and a bit of polish and of course a loooooot of time and patience.
It was like always when I started the renovation on a big part. First I had the feeling that it will never come to an end, and in fact I had no idea how to solve certain problems. The missing parts for example, how am I supposed to replace them? But like always, solutions come while working. A bit of sheet metal here some aluminum profiles there.... and here we are.
If I'm looking back now, it seems it never was a problem. Well, it really never was a problem since problems don't exist.... only solutions which are not found yet.

Where has the panel gone?

Pictures...

There is a lot of work to do on the Flight Engineers desk and Instrument panels. Keeps me busy the next couple of weeks... :-)

Most levers and dials

Another big piece....

Today I started the work on the flight engineers desk. There is a lot to do because the guys who disassembled (hacked apart) the cockpit were not very careful. A couple of parts have to be replaced or re-manufactured.
I'm glad that this part of the simulator will only be "cosmetic". It's not planned to make any of the instruments or controls work. Although I'm thinking to use some switches and lamps to control the computers or the simulator software.... we will see.

Rust gone

Just like new...

Some people asked me how I cleaned all the nuts and bolts and how I made them look like new.
I think the pictures speak for itself. Normally I use the lathe in my workshop to turn the screws and a bigger wire brush with an ordinary drilling machine. But today I had to clean only seven Airloc bolts and I did it with simpler tools. The result is the same but it takes a little bit longer.
I let the screw turn at a medium speed and move the rotating brush over the surface until it shines. There's not much you could do wrong. Just don't use a too hard brush and don't use too much pressure or you will cut grooves into the surface.

And that's the whole secret :-)

Something to look at

The first panels are installed...

Last weekend I installed the first two panels and the steering columns. I hope I will soon get the seats and can start to play :-)

Reverse gear

Full reverse please....

This little board is responsible for good landings on short runways. It's the interface between the throttles, the reverser switches and the Simkits I/O adapter.

The problem was that real Connie thrust reverser don't work in the way it is needed for the flight simulator. If you pull the levers in the real airplane, then the propellers go into reverse pitch and the engine power is increased to approx. 30%. That means the propellers blow backwards and the throttles open up the more you pull the lever.

If you connect that directly to the flightsim you will get a problem. The simulator doesn't know if he has to reverse or accelerate, a movement of the throttles disables the reverse mode. The result is a wild switching between forward and reverse thrust if both commands are given simultaneously.

This little relais board does something simple. It disconnects the throttle potentiometers as soon the reverser switch is activated and the movement of the levers has no effect anymore. If you pull the levers, you will get that amount of reverse power as programmed in the flightsim.

Many thanks to the guys at mycockpit.org for helping me to solve this problem.

Fake panels

Old and new faceplate...

The old faceplate from the ignition switch was a 'little bit' corroded. So I made a new one as described in the last post.

But how do you 'make' such a faceplate or label??? It's easy... really. If you have drawn a new plate on your computer (that's the difficult part), then print it on self adhesive paper with a good printer. If you need color, take a color printer.
To protect the paper and the printing on it, you only need some self adhesive transparent plastic sheet. Cut the label with the plastic on it into the right size.... that's it!

Sounds easy and with a little practice it really is.

Fonts needed

Another panel is functional...

Today I finished the work on the pilots overhead panel. From the many switches on that panel I will use only the engine ignition switches and maybe the command bell and the "no smoking" and "fasten seatbelts" switches... I only have to find a nice sounding bell.

The faceplate underneath the ignition switches was completely corroded and I had to replace it. I did it the easy way...
I scanned the original plate and used the picture as a background in Adobe Illustrator. Then I used that program to draw a new plate over the original picture. That way I was sure to have the correct dimensions and locations for the holes and letters.

The biggest problem was to find the right font for the words. I found that Copperplate Bold was very close. The only difference was that Copperplate had some little "spikes" on it's letters. But by chance I found a solution to get rid of the spikes. In Illustrator it is possible to define areas and borderlines of objects freely, also for letters. I used a thin borderline in the same color as the background and that line made the spikes invisible. Result... a perfect Super Connie panel font!

USB trouble

My airplane....

... so far. After a couple of strange problems with my new USB hub, I took the old hub I used for my Mac and now all the stuff seems to work as intended. The new hub us now working under my desk and connects Mac, printer and scanner... here it works fine.

The problem was that some devices connected to the hub suddently stopped working. Plugging them out and in again cured the problem but.... other devices disappered instead. A very strange behaviour. Maybe it has to do with the USB device numbering, I don't know how the PC assigns the addresses to the USB devices... maybe it's something different.

However, there are no problems with the Keyspan 4 port hub so far.

Cheap interface

10 buttons for 19 Swiss Franks...

Do you need some buttons or switches hooked to your PC? Simply buy this little USB game controller for 19 Franks (about $15 ). It has 10 buttons, a hat switch and two miniature joysticks... and two vibration motors.
The second picture shows the PCB inside with everything removed except the connecting wires for the buttons and of course the microprocessor on the other side.

All switches have one ground connection and one signal connection, so it will be easy to attach all kind of flightsim switches. :-)

Metal worker

Cut, drilled, sanded....

The pilots instrument panel is finished - at least the metal work. Now the instruments have to be seated into the holes. Some of them will need some additional cutouts but more or less this is it.
It will be painted in black instead of the original army green because it looks better.

It feels good...

Today I connected the Connie throttles to the USB analog input controller and after some playing with the settings and adjustments.... it really works.
It's a great feeling to push the throttles forward and to hear the roar of the engines from the speakers. The adjustment is a bit tricky because there are two locations where it must be done. First you do it in the settings of the MS-FlightSim, then again in the settings of FSUIPC. And don't forget to assign the axes to the correct joystick! If there are only two joystick devices (at the moment) it's easy, but if there are three and more devices, you have to concentrate on what you do :-)

I'm happy that it works because the TRC-Simkits analog input is designed for 10kOhm potis and I'm using 50k because I could not find the right ones. To correct the resistance I connected two 20k resistors in parallel to the potis, this gives a total resistance of about 15kOhm and that's fine.
The only disadvantage of this trick is that the travel of the throttles is not linear anymore. The response is a bit flat around the center position but that is no problem.

Checking altimeters

I am playing a bit with the instruments... again. A few years ago I bought this vacuum chamber and a pump to seal some electronic parts, now there is a new use for it.
It seems the altimeters are still working good, despite my unqualified 'servicing'. Until 20'000 feet they go perfectly synchronous, above 25'000 they have a little difference of 300 ft. But I don't know to what altitude they are calibrated, so I assume that's more or less ok. They won't be used in an aircraft anyway.

By the way... did you know that on 20'000 ft there is only half the pressure than on the ground? It's a vacuum of -0.5 Bar (0.5 kgf per cm2... or 5N per cm2... or 500 hpa.... or 14.76 inches of Hg)
And you have a 80% vacuum at 40'000ft.

Amazing stuff

I don't know why I didn't start earlier to play with the instruments I got. Each one works in a completely different way and all of them are fascinating precision devices.
Yesterday I repaired the gyro heading indicator. The rotor of the gyro was stuck because of corrosion. The whole cockpit must have been standing in the rain or something. Everything shows more or less signs of water damage.
The heading indicator ist an amazing toy :-)... It makes a lot of noise since I'm not able to balance the rotor properly, but it works. It runs on 28 Volts DC so it's easy to hook on my lab power supply.

The most amazing instrument until now is the vertical speed meter. Not so much because of how it works but because it is installed inside an vacuum insulated glass jar (picture). I presume this has the function to prevent that thermal changes can alter the reading.
I already know what to do with this glass thing.... it will be a PERFECT tea cup! I already tested it with hot water from the tap. Outside it stays cool like it was empty. I just have to attach some kind of flat bottom to it.

Synchros and RPM

How does an RPM indicator work?

In a car it is simple.
You only need a flexible shaft to connect a RPM meter to the engine. Inside the meter is a rotating magnet and a aluminum disc on a shaft with a return spring. The magnet spins and induces currents in the disc. These interact with the magnet and the disc begins to move... and so does the pointer.

And in an aircraft?
Well, at least in the Super Connie it is exactly the same principle with one difference. It is not possible to use a flexible shaft since the engines are 10 or more meters away from the cockpit. So they made something clever; they mounted a small generator on the engine and a even smaller electric motor inside the instrument. If the generator turns with 500 rpm for example, then the instrument motor does exactly the same.
And the rest is like in your car.... your old car... without electronic displays.