Hows is Going?

[cpt kaneo]

Hows it going everyone. I'm new here and haven't had much experience in building home cockpits, but I hope that throughout my stay here I will gain some much need experience:D

I am currently looking into making a Learjet 45 simulator, and I have started doing some research. Could anyone help point me in the right direction by posting some websites or articles that have some information about sizes and specifications and dimensions of the cockpit? I would like to make it as close to the real size as possible.

Many thanks

kane

[Michael Carter]

Welcome to the site. Tomlin is the resident Lear builder. He'll jump in here shortly with some help I'm sure.

[Westozy]

Hey Kane, good to see you here!

Gwyn

[Matt Olieman]

Welcome aboard Kane. Glad you can join in :)

[dodiano]

Welcome aboard Buddy!!!

[cpt kaneo]

thanks for the welcome guys

[Michael Carter]

I don't know where Tomlin is, I figured he'd been in on this post by now.

[Tomlin]

Here I am! Welcome to the forum Kaneo, I was real busy over the weekend, hence my lack of a generally quick response.

I am definately no expert at anything, but since Michael (Boeing Skunk Works) called me the resident Learjet builder, I will be glad to try to fill that role :-)

Pretty much everything you need to build a Learjet 45 sim to very near scale is right here under your nose. I have posted many, MANY files for the various parts of the Learjet 45 in the Downloads section. Some of the files include:

MIP/FGC/Landing Gear Handle drawings
Operational Info directly from the real Bombardier handbook
some other info

You are also most welcomed to my website, located at www.flightlevel180.org and that will show you lots of pictures and also many of the pictures have captions that explain what is going on.

Be sure to look at the Links page on my site for other LJ45 builders, as they have some great ideas too that have helped me.

Some points to ponder with your build-

I have a mix of FDS SYS3 and GoFlight RMKs that are working beautifully together for the most part for all of my interfacing. I would like to encourage you (or any other LJ builder) to consider Gwyn (WestOzy's) 85% Rule- Use the best available parts and techniques to make your sim up to 85% as real as the real aircraft, and dont beat your head against the wall trying to get it to look so real that you have no fun or run waay over budget. A good example of this for the LJ is that right now, there's no commercially available panels, but different suppliers are considering doing it. As a result of this, you may have to make your own and last night I discovered that the small pushbutton switches supplied from GoFlight in their Remote Mount Kits (RMKs) that they are nearly the perfect size of the EFIS buttons for the Learjet. Guess what? I was GOING to make those buttons out of the right sized acrylic bar, much like the rest of my Korry switches, but when I made the delightful discovery that the supplied buttons from GF were very close, I said, 'forget making those suckers- I will just use these buttons here'. That's a good example of the 85% rule, and when building an aircraft that is not widely supported by commercial suppliers, it's a wonderful rule to work around.

Also, you will most likely discover that unless you use the EPIC (very old, outdated, and cumbersome but very flexible) interface system, you will not be able to interface every function in the Learjet 45. However, you will be able to interface:

BATT
ENG 1/2 Start
GEN 1/2
Avionics
Landing Gear
All TQ functions
OFF/TAXI/LANDING Lts
OFF/BEACON/STROBE Lts
NAV Lts

AP Master
FD/CRS SEL
NAV HLD
HDG SEL/HDG HLD
YD
ALT SEL/ALT HLD
SPD SEL/SPD HLD
VS SEL
APP HLD

Pitot Heat/Anti Ice
Seat Belts

...and some others. These are all pretty basic, but when combined with the Project Magenta PMRJ software, it all looks very nice and is lots of fun, even with my project just really getting off the ground now.

Have a look at my site and then ask any question you have.

Another thing- some people have mentioned that with my monitor setup, I cant use analogue standby gauges. That is true, the LCD monitors that I use take up the entire space behind the MIP (but not the Lower panels) but I did that because it was simpler and cheaper in the long run. However, I didnt really want to spend the money (lots of it) on the 3 analogue standbys and I will either A) have paper gauges behind bezels, or B) use the PMRJ standby ISIS type gauge, which by the way, has been developed and certified for use in the Learjet 45. Ive just never seen it in a photo, but have read about it.

Anyhow, this is long enough- best of luck.

[cpt kaneo]

thanks a lot Tomlin, I will be sure to visit your website, thanks a lot for the information.