NEW website for FL180

[Tomlin]

Hi all

Im pleased to announce that I have a NEW website with my own domain now. Hopefully you will find the new site just as helpful, less cluttered, and easier to navigate along with the ability to have much more bandwidth and material posted up!

The site is at

http://www.flightlevel180.org/1.html

Mods: Would it be possible to have this updated in the Builders Links as well please?

Thanks,

[QF6228]

Nice work Eric, Looks good mate..;)

[Yoshi]

Sweet!

Good work, looks really nice!

Cheers

Yoshi

[Trevor Hale]

Just add it again Eric, and I will remove the old one.

Trev

[Tomlin]

Thanks guys. It's taken quite a bit of time to get it changed over. There's most of the old content with some updated pictures and features as well.

Thanks Trevor for helping me out as well.

[elekwind]

Nice site Tomlin
Very inspirational
Keep up the good work !!!!!

Ralton

[Tomlin]

Hi guys.

Some new pictures posted of the throttle quad under construction. You can read a bit about them here: http://www.flightlevel180.org/4.html

[Trevor Hale]

Is that 1/4" Steel he is building them out of. Dude!! You sim is going to weigh 6,000 lbs when it is finished.

Holy Smokes!

[Tomlin]

Is that 1/4" Steel he is building them out of. Dude!! You sim is going to weigh 6,000 lbs when it is finished.

Holy Smokes!

No, it's close though- 3/16". However, it's a simulator-not an airplane, and it's not going anywhere once it's built, so I want it built right. One thing that really worries me is taken from a comment that a builder over at FDS made a while back regarding the quality of sim parts- he said something to the effect of: "Just wait till little Johnny comes over with his dad and you pretty much have to let him have a moment to sit in the sim and 'fly' it, and he touches this one thing that practically falls apart because he was a bit rough and it wasnt built well enough.

That's not going to happen here if I can help it! Im guessing the weight of the sim is going to be just under 1000 lbs not counting a crew of two.

[elekwind]

Tomlin

Just a quick question;). I was just looking at your website and noticed a 2 things that came up in my mind which I am sure you can answer.
1.) I see that you are using 20.1 inch LCD displays for PFD/ND and RMU'S which look great,but how will you display the annunciators and standby instruments as the LCD screens are going to be in the way.

2) Your Korry type indicators looks fantastic as seen by the landing gear indicators,I would like to know how you made those (are they homebult or have you ordered them?).

Thanks for your reply.

Ralton

[Tomlin]

Hi Ralton, I appreciate the questions.

The 2nd question is easiest to answer- I made them! They are .75" acrylic bar that is cut to whatever length that is required and then a slice is made from the back towards the front, but obviously not all the way to the front. Then I placed a devider in the slice to seperate the two sides for the Red/Green LEDs that are in the back (I guess I should have taken a picture of the back too). Then, I took some thin .10" sheet and made a T shaped devider to space the 3 parts properly and then glue them together with superglue (the kind for model airplanes, known as CA).
Then I simply sanded the faces with very fine sandpaper until they looked uniform. I taped the faces off, and then painted the unit black. Hole are drilled in the back for the LEDs.

By the way, I will be glad to make one for anybody for $45.00 USD, LEDs included. That covers my material/S&H costs plus the time it takes to get it perfect.


Question 1: Regarding the Standbys and the annuciator- Well, I would love to have the standbys working, but it's not a priority and when I started this project (after being a Boeing 737NG perfectionist for years) I made myself a promise that I would not obsess AS MUCH over stuff, which was why I had made no progress on the 737. That coupled with the fact that none of the standbys on the market are the right size (they are all a bit too big) led me to just plan on having dummy standby instruments. I have to admit though- I did think about using the PMRJ standby HSI up there since the screen will be in that position, it would look very similar to the newer 737NG ISIS (integrated standby instrument system) but of course, Learjets dont have this at this time.

Regarding the annunciators, I do believe that with small enough LEDs, I can still make the annunciator panel workable. I have exchanged some emails with Jaap and Otto from their Lear project and I may take a stab at how they did it, but they are using Open Cockpits and I am not. Not sure if I can make it work.

I am VERY happy with the way the new LCD monitors look. I have attached a picture taken last night for illustration. I will have a bigger version posted up on the site as well.

[elekwind]

Tomlin thanks for the reply.Your MIP looks awesome with those LCD screens.
I have one last question.
1)Do you know what is the color code for the Learjet 45 MIP as I have already designed most of the panels in Coreldraw for the drawings you posted.I just need the right color!

Thanks, keep up the good work !

[Tomlin]

Hi Ralton, thanks. I really dont know what the color code is, but I did call Bombardier a few weeks ago and asked for the paint shop hoping to get the code, but the guy never answers his phone. Maybe I will try again today to get it. Would you be able to share those corel files with me please?

[elekwind]

Yeah sure I can do that, better still let me upload them now, then other people can also benefit.I don't have all of them yet still working on the others, I used Coreldraw for the first time 2 days ago, so please guys I am new to the panel designing thing!.They are in Coreldraw format so you guys can alter and change them as you please.Enjoy

Ralton

[elekwind]

I'm having trouble uploading the files it seems like I can't upload CDR (Coreldraw Files).Please help.
Thanks

[Trevor Hale]

.zip the file first :) It will accept it then...

[elekwind]

LOL:D,Now I feel so dumb !!!!,only saw it afterwards.There are 4 panels for now,I will upload immediately. Remember you will need Coreldraw to view these files.Please tell me what you guys think

Thanks for the advice Trevor

[elekwind]

It's done !, just look under the download section the panel bitmaps and drawings then main panel and it should be right there !