Most fighter aircraft don’t have seats that move fore & aft like a car seat does.  Instead, the seat is bolted in to place and the rudder pedal assembly is built to move in order to adjust for different sized pilots.

In order to do that in my cockpit, I mounted my rudder pedals on a pair of ball bearing drawer slides laid horizontally.

rudder_adjust1

The drawer slides are a little bit over 12″ long.

rudder_adjust2

In order to “lock” the rudder pedals into place, I installed a pair of aluminum plates into the cockpit floor that are drilled to take 1/4″ locking “pins”.

rudder_adjust3

rudder_adjust4

It’s pretty simple, but it does get the job done!  At some point I’d like to be able to turn the two bolts I’m using as locking pins into actual pins that can be retracted from the cockpit itself, allowing adjustment without having to exit the cockpit and manipulate them from the front access hatch.

The other project that was finished is the trim & flap wheels:

wheels1

The wheels have a 12 tooth sprocket and they drive a 48 tooth sprocket that’s connected to a potentiometer.  This gives roughly four turns of the wheel to one turn of the pot.

wheels2

wheels3

I’m using #25 roller chain for this.  It’s similar to bicycle chain, but about half size.  The 48 tooth sprockets have travel restricting devices installed in order to prevent the high-torque output of the trim wheel from destroying the end stops in the potentiometers.

Here’s a pic of it installed in the prototype:

wheels4

It shouldn’t be too much longer before I actually get to flight test all this stuff. *laughs*

throttle_done1

Well here’s the completed throttle quadrant.  I’m happy with how it turned out – which is surprisingly good considering how much I suck at metalworking. 🙂

throttle_done2

I’m using a standard DE9 connector for the three slide pots that are linked to each lever arm.

Right after I finished the throttle quadrant, I decided it was time to address the shortcomings in the rudder pedals that I built last summer.  I was very disappointed in both the toe brake mechanism as well as the size of the pedals.  I got lucky and found a pair of gas springs that had a 1-7/8″ stroke with a 40lb compression force.  They were surplus and ran me a whopping $1.99 each.

old_vs_new_pedal

Here’s a comparison between the new pedal design and the old one.  The new pedal is on the right.

rudder_pedals1

The pedal design is based on a set of CAD drawings I found on the ‘net, drawn by a gent that goes by the nick Baloo.  The CAD drawings were entirely metric, which doesn’t do me much good here – I don’t dare mix measurement systems because I know for a fact it’ll come back and bite me in the ass some day.  I drew a new pedal design based on Baloo’s original drawing, but I increased the pedal length by about 1/2″.  They’re just about 12″ long now.  The pedals were cut from 1/2″ Baltic Birch, which is a 7+ layer high quality plywood.

rudder_pedals2

Here you can see the new gas spring setup.  The 40lb force required to actuate the gas spring gives a very realistic brake feel to the pedal.  I was very happy with the result.  I was also able to re-use the toe brake pots and actuator hardware without any changes.

Now that all the parts are cut and everything fits like it should, It’s time to move on to getting this thing assembled!

I made one more change to the original BRFS design:

throttle end plate

Instead of using the recommended method for keeping the main support bolt from rotating when you tighten or loosen the friction knob, I installed a stove carriage bolt that has a squared area right underneath the bolt head.  This prevents the bolt from turning once it’s drawn completely into the material.

The first step is to get each lever rigged up:

rigging the lever 1rigging the lever 2

The rigging line I used was 36 strand steel beading wire.  This and the swag collars can be had at your local craft store.

I’m using a pull-pull system to actuate the slide pot – the geometry is similar to the BRFS throttle, but because my levers are symmetrical, I didn’t need to use the spring to keep tension on the line.  I’ve also drilled two holes (only one is used) to attach the pull wires to the pot arm.  Each hole that the rigging wire passes through has been carefully de-burred in order to make sure that no sharp edges existed that could cut the line over time.

all layers rigged

This is what it looks like from the bottom with all three lever assemblies installed.

The knobs are painted and they turned out really nice!

painted knobs 1

(don’t forget to click the “more” link below!)

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The past few weeks have seen more work on my Me-109-like simulator cockpit.

Here’s a few pictures of the new seat that was designed & built in a couple of days. 🙂

seat_cut_4

seat_cut_2

The seat is made with 3/4″ AC plywood and is held together with pocket screws.  The cushions are 2″ foam with a 1/4″ plywood back that is attached to the seat via some #10 screws that fit into T nuts that are epoxied into the cushion base.

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Today marked another milestone in my own cockpit built from the Series One DIY Cockpit plans.

The now primer-prepped tub has been assembled and painted!

Here’s what it looks like before the final color was applied:

Cockpit tub assembled, just prior to painting.

Because the floor in my shop is so uneven, I had to place it on a table and loosen all the bolts, re-align everything and then re-tighten all the bolts.  Never does a day go by when I’m NOT reminded of those incompetent idiots that built my shop. 🙁

On to the painting!

..painting the end cap...

The paint gun I’m using is called a “siphon gun”.  It uses a high velocity stream of air across an adjustable height tip to “pull” paint from the paint pot.  This particular one is called a “Critter Gun” and is available at Amazon.  This is the only paint gun I’ve ever owned that will throw un-thinned latex paint.  I have my compressor set to 80 PSI or so and this little thing does a fantastic job.  As a bonus, it uses a little 1 pint Mason jar as the paint pot.  Changing colors is pretty easy as you never have to wash out the paint pot, just clean the siphon assembly & gasket and change to another color in another Mason jar.  Works great.

Side view of the painted cockpit tub

This is what the tub looks like after painting.  I’m amazed at how well it turned out!  I didn’t do a really great surface prep job before I primed, so the paint looks a little odd.  The canopy, windscreen and other upper parts came out much better.  Pics of those coming soon!

End view of the tub...

The Zinc Chromate Green interior color really gives it that “real cockpit” look.  I can’t wait until I’ve got it done and I can actually use it!

Sunday the 30th I’ll be finishing off painting the upper cockpit parts like the canopy and windscreen.  If I’m really lucky, I’ll get final assembly done tomorrow evening.  If I do, I’ll update the site with new pictures.

Thanks for reading folks!

Now that I’ve got some more progress made on the F-15, I’m switching to my DIY cockpit project in order to get it finished.  Folks have been asking for pictures of what it looks like when completed.

Yesterday I finished applying primer to the last two components – next will come final assembly…

Cockpit components after priming...

This color is known as Zinc Chromate Green and is used as a commercial aircraft part primer.  It’s a powder coat material.

For the DIY cockpit project, I had my local Ace Hardware mix up some flat primer and they colored it based on a Zinc Chromate Green material sample I gave them.  It turned out really nicely.  The paint code for the color primer is listed in the downloadable manual on the DIY Cockpit Project site – http://www.geneb.org/pitkit.

Next up will be doing the design for the main instrument panel.  The panel will house a 14″ LCD monitor plus other instruments.