My Project 45:

January 2004: I had an idea!...

Who wakes up out of the blue and says, “I think I’m going to build a flight simulator today.”  No one does.  It comes from a seed that was planted years and years ago.

Ever since I could remember, I have loved everything about aviation.  As a kid, I remember marveling at the Blue Angles and their precision flying formations during air shows.  Between that and listening to my Uncle Wayne tell stories about his WWII aviation adventures, (who by the way flew everything from a DC-3 to the Concorde), lead me to spend 10 years in the U.S.N.R. on the P3-C Orion as an Acoustic Sensor operator.

During my time in the Navy through the 90’s, I had the opportunity to fly the P3 simulators here at NAS Jacksonville Florida.  Even though it was 70’s technology, I was completely sold and blown away with the realism of the flight simulation it created.  There was hardly a difference from what I knew about real flight and the artificial flight that these simulators produced.  I had to have one, but couldn’t afford the $5,000,000 price tag!  

My wife Michelle made the simple mistake of getting me a relatively inexpensive “video game” called, FS2004 for Christmas in 2003.  I have had most of the Microsoft flight simulators prior, but this one seemed to take a huge leap forward, particularly with its graphics compared to the previous versions.  Between this and people sharing information on this growing subject (with the help of the internet), it was clear to me that a home built flight simulator could be achieved for under $20,000.  (That’s a really nice one by the way)

March 2004:  Selecting an aircraft...

The next step was choosing an aircraft to model.  I thought about the P3-C, the 737, the 747 and several others which are all beautiful aircrafts, however, they were too big for the space I had to work with.  I ended up choosing the Learjet 45 because it’s small, not as complicated to build as some of the other favorites, and still required two pilots to fly, “legally”.  This jet also has a decent range with modern avionics, not to mention it looks cool.   

                                                                                               PROJECT 45  

April 2004: Setting a goal...

After I finally selected an aircraft, I set one simple rule to follow:

                                            Rule #1: DO NOT USE AUTHENTIC AIRCRAFT PARTS! 

                    (But I guess rules are made to be broken because I have acquired a few real parts!)

It’s an easy rule to follow because generally, we can’t afford these parts anyway.  I don’t have a timeframe for completion of this project because if your human like me, things are always coming up, which means this gets put on hold.  My time will also be split helping others with their projects as well.   

I set a goal to build the simulator to be at least 95% functional and be completely enclosed to enhance the effect of immersion. (By the way, this is where the name “Flight Simmersion” comes from.)  The outside view will be over 200 degrees of circle vision on a curved screen with the use of either three or five projectors depending on the advances in software when I get to that point.

I wanted to build a simulator that moved and mimicked the real aircraft that I was modeling.  Therefore, the simulator will be mounted on a motion base platform with three degrees of freedom (D.O.F.),  Pitch, Roll and Vertical (Heave), which I believe are the three most important of the six and easiest to achieve.  In case you are new to this hobby, the other three are Longitudinal (Thrust), Lateral (Sway) and Yaw.  

The platform will have up to 15 degrees of motion in any direction, which means the angle could change by as much as 30 degrees from one max stop position to the opposite extreme.  This should be more than enough movement to play tricks on your equilibrium along with what your eyes are telling you.   If money is not a problem, all six DOF can be achieved at a much higher price. Google it!    

 May 2004: Plans and Drawings…

I started sketching and drawing in April 2004.  My first drawings were very crude to say the least.  Over the past four years, my drawings have honed into something that I now feel comfortable with building and putting the effort into.  I try to think of everything when I am working on a draft, things that most people would never give a second thought to.  All the extra attention to detail will pay off near the end of completion.

January 2005: The Flight Box…

In between drawing, I needed to convince myself that I could in fact build (in my opinion) one of the most complicated projects a guy could undertake in his garage.  I spent about $1,000 and 8 months of time building what I call my “Flight Box”. 

The most important feature is the throttle quadrant “TQ”, which is actually a CH Throttle Quadrant that I modified to fit and work as I needed it to in this project.  It also has most of the major functions that the L45 has, including the Engine Panel, Auto Pilot, Anti Ice and the Gear/Elec Panel.  I even included the major failures that could happen in flight. 

I built my own panels using Plexiglas, aluminum sheeting and K-1 switches from Flight Deck Solutions.  I used an output card from Beta Innovations Inc. to link the Flight box to my computer.  Over all, it was not so tough but I had to be focused, orderly and dedicated to the project to get everything dialed in just right.  The Flight Box has worked flawlessly for over four years with no issues to date!

                                                                                                PROJECT 45  

January 2006: Temporary Desk Top Simulator…

Using my Flight Box, a 20” LCD screen, an over head projector, CH Yokes, CH Pedals and a Butt Kicker system, I created a temporary flight simulator that did not take up much space in the bedroom.  I split the video feed so that the outside view was on the wall via the projector and my instruments were on the LCD screen.  

I started fooling around and built a temporary glare shield out of poster board to split the prjector image to create a full scale virtual cockpit of a 737NG!  Cool, but I still needed to build my ultimate vision.

October 2007: Shell Drawings…

Finally got all of my “other around the house” projects completed and out of the way so that I could concentrate on what I have been dreaming of.  In my spare time, I sketched ideas and refined them several times over.  I also built a full scale frame section to get an idea of how the materials were going to work together.  You would not believe the strength that this model has!

 November 2007: 1/12th scale model...

I have seen some attempts of what I was about to attempt!

Once I decided to move forward with building a full scale flight simulator, one of the biggest challenges was creating the shell to look like an actual L45 nose section AND at the correct scale.  The dimensions inside and out had to be almost perfect to accommodate the MIP, yokes, pedal assemblies, center pedestal, glare shield, circuit breaker panels, seats etc.  It took several weeks of fine tuning my numbers and measurements before I was comfortable with my plans.  As a matter of fact, I started another model before I realized that the measurements were off.  That one got scrapped!

I used a three drawing picture and a few known measurements to build my 1/12^th scale port side model.  I only needed one side because the parts could be flipped over to duplicate the starboard side.  The other reason for modeling just the one side was to make sure both sides were identical, imperfections and all.  Some folks might say, “Why not use a CAD program to draw out the design of the shell frame?”  And I would say to them, “Why haven’t you yet if it’s so easy?”       

                                                                                              PROJECT 45  

December 2007: Transition the plans to full scale…

As I was building the model, I traced each part onto half inch grid paper.  I scanned the drawing into my computer and blew the image up to full scale on three foot wide paper that I had hanging on the wall using a projector.  The grid system that was previously a half inch was now six inches.  Then I traced the images which gave me a rough idea of the full size scale of the shell.  It didn’t take me long to see that this method was only going to get me close because there was about 3/8 inch distortion in some places on the six inch grid system.  Keep in mind that if you are just a fraction off on the model, that fraction turns into inches!

January 2008: Port side full scale “Jigs” (L45-001)…

Once I had a rough full scale shell on paper, it was time to build something.  I decided to use Medium Fiber Density Board (MDF) because it was cheap and I was going to be making a lot of mistakes.  I started at the rear wall and then worked my way up to the center line.  I then worked on the overhead jigs which weren’t too bad.  Then I ruff cut each frame section and used a lot of “line integration” to get everything as close to perfect as the naked eye could get it. (I have 20/15 vision by the way) It took several weeks to get things to a point that I was happy.

From this point one, I was ready to start contructing my Shell frame, L45-002.

Please go to the "L45 Shell" page to see the progress and finished product!

                                                                                                PROJECT 45