Hi from Northern California (building a helciopter sim)

[Jetprovost]

hi there,

I am about to embark on a build of a Schweizer 300 helicopter pit. Very exciting and daunting at the same time.

I've seen a few R22/44 sims, but is anyone else building a Schweizer?

Stuart

[Matt Olieman]

Welcome aboard Stuart. WOW!!! we need more Helicopter sims. Fantastic, will love to see your progress, be sure to take pics, we love em.

Glad you decided to join us.

Matt Olieman

[Ronson2k9]

Much like the Hughes 200. It's my favorite of the small helo's. Wide windshield though .. Could be a challenge to do the visuals?

One thing you may want to consider and I say this only because if it were me.. You may want to put in a floor mounted display so you can see the ground below you. If your pit is in the air somewhat. When making a simpit it's important to do the things you wouldn't normally have when just flying a desk. I know that when flying/landing that is greatest cue more then your instruments. It's also the one thing I would end up flipping to over and over again as I landed. So having that in your sim would really be a great benefit.

Just to get you started...
You may want to have a look at this.. (on the left side of this page you can download the Schweizer 300c POH (Pilots Operating Handbook)

http://sharpmountainaviation.com/id3.html
NOTE: Right click and save to a location (opening in a browser gave me an image error) Saving & then opening in Acrobat avoids that.

There are good drawings of the Intruments and Instrument panel in Part-B of the manual download. Don't let the opening to the document bum you out that bird started out as the 269 but later became the 300 and so the manual starts out at birds routes but goes forward through the 300c So you should have quite a bit if all the data you need to build with. Unfortunately it's a scan of manual so you can't do an active search in Acrobat. A little bit of clean up though and you should be able to print that out and keep as part of your cockpit. All aircraft are required to have a POH on board at all times..

One little nugget I gleaned from the manual ... It says and I quote..

The minimum crew of the Schweizer 300c is one pilot

I also found this from the Sikorsky site. It has nice panel layout and cockpit diagrams.
http://www.sikorsky.com/StaticFiles/...04_300C_TI.pdf

What plans do you have for your simpit?

And -- Welcome Aboard

[autocadplease]

nosecone is building a MD500 http://www.mycockpit.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17241

[jasonw93]

Hello

I am Jason. I am 30 years Old. Nice to meet you.

[Joe Cygan]

Hi Stuart,
Welcome to mycockpit! We don't have enough helicopter flight sim projects here so I'm sure everyone will be interested in yours. I'm an ex-Californian myself now living in Texas.

Looking forward to seeing your progress.

[Jetprovost]

Well Ronson what I was thinking was two sets of 3 screens (ie: 2 x tripple head 2 go) so I could lower the second set. Ideally I would project onto a curved screen, but I just dont have the physical space.

I think I'm going to plump for the Epic card for the interface.

I am still very much in a parts collection phase (do you know how hard it is to find large ball end toggle switches?!!!) I have lights and switches coming and I was looking at Simkits for the instruments, but they seemed to have stopped their multiuse instruments so I am still sourcing an alternative. I am also still sourcing a place to get the actual panel - I'm goign to replicate the Jsut flight 300 layout.

Although I'm pretty handy with computers and electronics, and I've been flying (fixed wing) for 20 years, I am completely new to both rotary wing and simulators. So let em know if I'm offbase at all with my choices as I go.

[spitfire9]

Lots of pictures of helicopter sim projects at Hovercontrol.com .

http://64.34.169.161/cgi-bin/ifolio/...s_and_Hardware

[Ronson2k9]

I would take a shot at building the ball end toggles (just the handle of the toggle switch). You wouldn't need to take the toggle apart to do that but add on to the toggle switch with a plastic bead and bushing/tubing then paint. That could save you quite a bit if you get good at it. Toggles are pretty cheap to by if not specialized. You may also have a problem with a real toggle interfacing with the sim? Not sure on that. There are those here that would know for sure.

- It would depend on the amount of power the toggle is rated for in relation to the amount you will be passing through when connecting the interface to the toggle?

Huge 300C cockpit pic
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dutchmetal/3854721923/

I can see the toggle switches in that pic quite clearly. Should be pretty easy to make them if you were so inclined. When making a sim pit you pretty much hang out at the hardware, art and jewelery/craft store as they have all the bits you need to build either what you can't find or is to hard or expensive to buy the real thing of.

While you can model your cockpit after the one in the sim. Really the sky is the limit (no pun intended) as you're interfacing a built cockpit with the sim. So in essence you're making a really really fancy joystick in a way. The computer has no idea what you have only that it controls the sim. It's up to you to tell it what each of the things you have does.

You'll find also that what you see here can sometimes be the real thing. Taken out of an actual airplane but many times it looks and feels and operates like the real thing but it's made of wood or plastic or common household items or of course from the aforementioned 'Simpit - supply stores' hehe.

Best of luck on your build and keep us posted on your progress.

Ron

[Jetprovost]

My ridiculous sense of perfection wont let me get away with a screen display lol - I wish it would! Very interested to see if we can get real switches working.