A little bit of an earthquake

Last Friday we had a 6.2 earthquake take place a few kms away from us and I just had a thought earlier on this afternoon! I wonder what it would have been like sitting in my cockpit last Friday during the shake?

I don't know if you remember from my earlier post, but I've built the main structure on springs

.....I reckon it would have been pretty smooth - bit like the modern anti-quake technology they use in building

We were lucky - our quake was quite deep so there was little damage. My thoughts are with the people of Nepal who endured a 7.8 quake and have suffered much damage and casualties in the thousands.

Graphic Card Outputs for FSX - a Dilemma!

I'm almost now at the stage where I'm about to start buying the components for the computer that's going to be driving this beast and I've hit a bit of a barrier.

To begin with, I'm probably going o need up to 6 video outputs from the system - 2 short throw data projectors, 2 standard 19.5" LCD monitors and 2 touch screen monitors (one large for the overhead panel and a medium sized one for the FMC).

The problem I've got is that having done some research it seems that using two graphics cards with FSX doesn't seem to work too well (SLI or crossfire) - going by what one of the top Flight sim computer builders, Jet Line Systems, has to say.

http://jetlinesystems.com/performance.php 

I have now emailed Jet Lines three times, but have yet to receive a reply about what they can offer as a solution.

So, I know there is a solution because others have been there and done it, but what is this solution - If anyone knows please post a comment

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 can provide up to 4 outputs from its 6 ports

At the moment, it's back to the internet to do more research to see if I can find a solution.....If anyone reading this blog has any advice, please feel free to offer constructive comment. Thank you.

Filling in the back

After a couple of weeks without having time to do any work on my project, this weekend is the ANZAC commemoration day of the landing of troops at Gallipoli and so after taking part in the formal ceremonies, I've had a bit of time to do some work.  Not much, but I've now filled in the back of the cockpit and painted the top of the instrument panel (you can see this in the foreground of the first photo)

The shiney black bit at the bottom is the top instrument panel - painted

Flightdeck coming alive with a coat of paint

Major step forward today - Virtually finished the build of the cockpit shell today and gave it its first coat on underpaint.  This really helps to turn it from a wooden structure into something that is beginning to resemble a flight deck.

Coming alive with a coat of paint

Lining the inside

Having put the lining in the cockpit window frames over the last couple of days,  today's task has been to 'fill in'  the gaps inside the cockpit - looks a bit untidy at the moment, but with filler, sanding and painting it will all look awesome.

Again, using hot water enabled me to bend the corner sections on the top an bottom of each window mullion to fit the curve of the cockpit.

Cockpit Windows - Bending the wood

High flying airliners don't have right angled (or sharp angled) corners as these become weak spots from which cracks can develop.  Aviation enthusiasts might remember this was the cause of the de Havilland  Comet crashes in the 50s. Ever since then all jet airliner windows have curved corners.

Sharp angled corner....

I've started working on the putting the curves onto my cockpit windows.  Early tests using thin wood or MDF showed  that you could only bend it so far before the wood or MDF snapped.  One thing I know is that wood can be bent more easily if it is wetted, so having measured where I needed to make a bend I placed the 3mm MDF strip I'm using for the lining in a basin of hot water.  Whilst submerged I flexed the strip in the direction I wanted the curve to follow.  As you work it, you can feel it becoming more flexible and after about 30 seconds it is ready for taking out and inserting into the frame.

........rounded of using MDF 

The pencil marks you see help to identify the area that needs to be immersed in water and the extend of the bend

I've made a short video that shows how I went about bending the MDF and fitting it to the frame:

Eating Humble Pie

Ok, my post from yesterday might have been (was) a bit premature.  I woke up this morning and thought I would give the paint another chance.  I made sure I stirred it thoroughly with a stronger piece of wood and sure enough I could feel the resistance at the bottom of the pot. Over the day I gave the screen 3 more coats and I'm now pretty pleased with how it's looking

......my apologies to Spring Paint

You don't always get it right

Having erected my screen and filled and smoothed the cracks with jointing compound, I've ended up with a nice smooth semicircular screen.  I started to paint it this evening with undercoat bought at our local DIY store in Christchurch - it was, I thought, good value.  However, the result of the first coat going onto MDF looks very disappointing

I'm going to give it another coat in the hope that it was just the first coat soaking in and sealing, but I've got my doubts.  The answer is don't buy cheap, I suppose?

Cheap Paint! :-(

On a more positive note:  I emailed a well-known paint supplier in New Zealand and Australia, Resene, to find out if there is a special paint that can be used to provide a good reflective projector screen and it appears there is.  This is the information I've received back: "Apply a coat of Resene Quick Dry Primer Undercoat to the bare MDF then apply 2 coats of Resene Spacecote Flat tinted to Resene Silver Sand N80-006-102." - Courtesy of Resene Paints (http://www.resene.co.nz/)

Screen paint swatches - Need to check which shade the email refers to

Instrument Panels and Display Screens

Using Adobe Fireworks has enabled me to create a vector diagram to create the panels that will then be converted  to a pdf and taken to a signmaker to print onto plastic.  Before I go the whole hog though I will talk with then and also ask for  sample so that I can see that it meets my spec.

On this image the yellow sections represent areas that will need to be cut out for switches and dials, the red section with the black background and orange text also needs to be cut out for annunciator panels, and the blue circles are where screw holes will be.

I've also made a start on the semicircular screen.  this is made from sheets of 3mm MDF.  I started by joining a board and a half (cut lengthways) to make each half of the screen - in other words each half measures 2.4m wide by 1.8m high.  The important part of joining the boards is to make the joins as invisible as possible.

 I used 6 blocks of MDF to strengthen the joint and glued and screwed these to the sheets making sure the heads of the screws are counter-sunk.

I also used adhesive paste to hold the pieces together and to help make the joints more invisible.

The first half mounted - you can still see the joint, but through a combination of plastering, sanding and painting this should become virtually invisible.

Another day and the second half of the screen is up.  Both halves follow the original line that I scribed out on the carpet right at the beginning.

One challenge was to get the centre joint to be as flat as possible in relation to each other so that there was no obvious crease.

Taken with a wide angle lens so it's difficult to see the 180 deg. curve of the screen.

The next step is to use some jointing compound to fill cracks and smooth out any unevenness before painting it.

The joints and screw holes evened out with jointing compound

Depending on how it goes, I might give it a second coat, but I will sand it down first.

Panel Visuals - Creating Digital files

At the same time as researching and working on the the spec for the computer, I've also made a start on the visuals for the instrument panels.  These panels will need to look good both during the day and at night.  I'm aiming to make these back lit to match the real displays as this image show.

I'm starting with the overhead panel so I measured the space on my build where this panel will go. I then found an image of the overhead panel and imported it into Adobe Fireworks ensuring it's width matched the space I have available on my flightdeck.  The reason for this is that this program has the option to create a vector image.  (To understand more about the difference between a vector image and a bitmap/jpg click on this link here)

If you don't have a program that creates vector images you can always use a program like Microsoft Publisher that you can still draw objects of various shapes and sizes and also edit text.

Having imported the image, it just a question of using the tools within the program to create the overlay - the images below help to show what I mean.

Showing the start of marking the overlay on the original background image

Still a work in progress, but here showing the template with background colour added

This 2 minute video show the method for overlaying the image and placing text

In addition to starting work on the panels, I've also been looking into how I can print these.  Clear plastic PVC is probably the obvious answer and because they need to be high quality I've looked into a few local companies that do sign making. I've been quoted about NZ$160/sq.m. which I think is quite reasonably if it achieves the result I want.