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Got bitten by the bug about 9 months ago and started in with a hiss and a roar. I have no prior wood working or metal working skills so this is a lot!!! of trial and error - mostly error and retrial.

Well first I needed a place to put this so it was a full day spent clearing out the garage - 3 teenagers - so plenty of accumulated debris - and I'm a bit of a hoarder according to the wife! :-?





Then it was off to the local Bunnings store for MDF sheets, screws, glue etc etc etc.
Started with the base and plenty of holes to run cabling etc through later on - also helps to keep the weight down.





finally a completed base - yep looks just like a Beech Baron already!!!





more in the next part
cheers

Part 2.

Time to start on the shell - some of the ideas are from another Baron project underway and modified to suit- the rest is made up as I go along ( oh and some planning here and there!).

First I made up the rear wall as close to the real measurements that I could find to give me a reference.



It is hot and thirsty work and went on well into the night - I do shift work and things have to fit in where and when they can.



I had an old car seat under the house that one of the kids dragged home during a hard rubbish collection one year, so it was used to give an idea on seat sizing and positioning.



Then it was onto the start of the side walls - again reducing weight where possible and leaving space for wiring runs later.





That was it for a little while due to work and commitments with kids.
More in part 3.
cheers.

The next part was the shaping and building up of the nose area. It had to be strong enough to support all the gear to go in later and small enough to not take up all the room.

The canopy arches on the Baron had me stumped for ages! They are beautiful to look at on the aeroplane but boy oh boy - they curve inwards and backwards and twist over at the top as well ! :-/ Try to get a peice of wood to do that!

Eventually I settled on a tetris type of arrangement and some caveman quality working. I stacked a series of wooden blocks with each successive one slightly off placed - very elegant (I thought) - then the caveman part - take one electric planer and ...



... whotta ya know - arches!







starting to look something in the order of a Baron now - if ya squint with one eye closed after 2 or 3 beers...



By this time I had decided on the main board to be Opencockpits and ordered the main board and two display boards.
Ordered it over the internet and they duly arrived and are on the shelf upstairs awaiting their time.

More soon
cheers

Now it was time to try putting some skin on this machine. 2mm mdf was used along with glue and screws. First I measured sizing and shapes using old cardboard - saves a fortune in time effort and frustration. Then the cutouts were traced onto a sheet of board before being cut with a jigsaw and given a rough sand.





Again - it's thirsty work! 8-)



Once the pieces are secured in place and the glue sets then it's good ole builders bog - this stuff is great - if it had been invented earlier then the earth would have only taken 3 days and mountains would be sandable!



starting to take the proper shape now



had to leave it there for a while due to work commitments - short staffed again (as always).

cheers

It's really shaping up nicely... impressive, given your claim of no experience with these materials.
The stacked blocks made for a lot of labor, eh? But simple to figure out, and no fancy tools or jigs needed. Good idea.
Ahhh... the smell of Bondo and Bacardi in the wee hours...

Wow, i would welcome you into SimV, but it seems you're more at home here than i am!!

Matt

[quote]Wow, i would welcome you into SimV, but it seems you're more at home here than i am!!

high all and thanks for the welcome

I thought that by making each part a seperate reply I was keeping below the numbers on the upload page etc but I see it has to be a seperate "thread" for each part - sorry about that - will keep it in mind for the future postings.

my handyman skills are purely from home DIY sort of stuff around the house - certainly no 'trade' skills - just the good old Kiwi attitude of "a piece of string and some number 8 wire and we should get that going".

For the instruments I had originally planned to try and make my own and to that end I invested in Mike Powells' superb book "Building Simulated Aircraft Instrumentation". but after a good read I came to the conclusion that it's just a tad above my skill level at the moment - maybe once I've learned more.

Then I investigated getting ready made from Simkits etc but they are so hideously over priced that it's just not going to happen - not in the life of this mortgage anyway!

It was about then that I read JB's thread on these forums and that lead me to FsXpand. I have downloaded the trial and later this month will get the registered latest version of FSUIPC to get it going - I have an earlier registered version on FS2004 so don't understand why it didn't pick it up??? but will need the new one and widescreen(?) to run FSX anyway.

For the main display - ideally - 3 projectors on a triple head unit - practically - 1 projector off the graphics card - in reality - maybe my 22" widescreen monitor jacked up on the nose
In the meantime I just keep going to work, paying the bills and buying the lottery tickets!

talking of which, it's time to hit the shower and go stir some more aeroplanes around the skies.

cheers till next time

Impressive.

Crash

WOW
Nice work there, I'm just starting my pit too and have to say I'm more than a little humbeld by yours.
Now if only I had the time and skills (sigh)
Keep up the photos, they're good inspriation  :)

Cheers
Martin

Very nice indeed. Good to see another kiwi taken the plunge in cockpit building. I am currently working on a MD500E simulator as soon as I have some new pics I will post.
Love the job you have done on yours so far

Regards

Rhys  

Towerguy,
It looks great and and seems moving fast. A nice space to play around too.
I am thinking to pullout my simulator from the basement and put it in my garage which is full of ... what can I say?! This frightens my wife who thinks if I get a little more space I would start building a cockpit shell and forget everything as I used to and going to bed by two.

I will try to post some pictures of my simulator which I haven't touched for several months soon.
Regards, ermias.