Ok - time to attack those overhead panels again! There are SO many switches, SO many annunicators, SO much wire ... these things are a project in themselves.

Electronics Project Director Neil Brown mounting the IO cards on the overhead rails.

No, it's not Christmas. Although with all this ribbon lying around you could think it was!

You can see here the beauty of Neil's design. All inputs/outputs terminate to/from 40 pin headers set through the centre of the panel-back. Ribbon cables plug into these which feed out the back and around onto the top where they plug into the IO Master cards.

Surgeons at work.... "Nurse ... swab!" "Nurse ... coffee!"

See what I mean about the wires! :)

And the (almost) finished creation, with IO cards mounted on the rails. This allows for easy maintenance, and the rails actually hinge at the back too so you can lift the hood and work. The aft overhead panel is a similar design.

Backlighting is next, and making a back protective cover. Oh, and switch/LED programming ... lotsa that in the next few days <cough> weeks.

Well the seats are great but getting in and out of them in their non-attached state was the pits. So we bit the bullet and made some sliding bases for them. The seats already have substantial forward/backwards movement so there is no need to slide them backwards. All they need is a sideways movement to let you get in and out of the seat nice-n-easy. So here's our solution...

Karen actually came up with the basics of this idea. We're using heavy-duty white-goods mover-wheels. You can use them to move fridges, freezers, mountains - anything heavy. We cut down their length and attached them to a 12mm MDF platform.

This is the wheel thingies bolted to the underside of the base. Beauty of these is they distribute weight efficiently.

And here is the completed base with steel rails which act as guides and prevent the seat from lifting when you shift in the seat or slide it backwards/forwards. Each rail is made from 40mm steel-angle, welded together (overlapped).

A seat bolted to one of the new bases (rails not on yet).

The completed mechanism - this is the rear rail and back-end of the base. moving is real easy now ... it slides easy, even with your full body-weight on the seat, AND on carpet! (cue Irish jig...)

Overhead panels finally installed! They aren't functional yet, but that's not far off now.

It was time to get beyond the temporary visuals and go for the real thing ... 180 degrees wrap around, full immersion. This was a huge challenge and took many, many hours. 2 x 1AM finishes = wives patience waring thin! :) The challenge is magnified by the fact that the garage space allows only 1 metre width on either side of the shell.

This is the centre projector and mirror being set up. We're using mirrors for all 3 projectors, and back-projecting onto a white screen. More pictures to follow - once its all perfected.

We had two black clouds that kept following us when flying ... <cough> ... until we moved those coffee cups .. :)

Putting up the left-side screen material. Can't wait to get the ceiling all covered in and trimmed off ... just can't get motivated to actually do it, that's all ! :) Such is cockpit building.

And the result so far... (screen material yet to be fully de-creased btw)

The crew seats have arrived! These are used seats but still in good condition and very comfortable and adjustable too. All we have to do now is figure out a rail system to mount them on to allow sideways movement so crew can get in and out of the seats without doing limbo contortionist sideshow acts.

Been really busy on it the past few days ... so you want pics ... we got pics!!

This is the glareshield top under construction. Using 3mm MDF sheet in 3 sections. The channel in the middle section is for the MCP post lights - including the coloured diffuser that you can see.

And here's the finished product, covered in black vinyl.

The Symulatory glareshield wings were too short and nowhere near deep enough either. So I cut-off the ends and decided to rebuild and extend the wings. This is a progress shot of reconstruction.

And here's almost the finished glareshield wings with the black trim piece added. Made these from 20mm closed-cell foam, covered in black vinyl. Underside glarehshield cover is not done yet.

Close-up .. smile honey!

Re-installed the side trims in the flightdeck and added the corner connector piece. This is a complex multi-angled shape that took alot of work to plan and get right. Just gotta add some top-plates to the side pedestal, the steering tiller, and clipboards to the window-armrest.

Rule #3244 of sim building ... there's always something else to do (arrggghh!!...)

Ok, taken pills, back together now :). 737 wizkids will note that its a bit wider (from the main panel face) than the real thing. We've added a little extra width overall to facilitate people of all shapes-and-sizes being able to get in and out of the crew seats.

We've been focussed on other things the past few weeks so not alot of progress. However there have been a few advances...

Yokes fully wired up now and chart holders installed. One yoke was devoid of any wiring and had to be done from scratch ... a 3 hour job. Cockpit building is full of suprises.

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Protective box for the IO cards controlling the MIP, TQ, flight controls and avionics pedestal. Lots more cards, ribbon cable and wire to come in here yet!

The aft and fwd overheads are about 95% done and almost ready to be installed. Gauges now installed and all wiring complete.

Long view - looking aft to fwd

Close-up on the fwd panel