September 24, 2000

Well we have completed phase 2 of the upgrade to the 767-400ER. Here the new pedestal is completed and fully functional. Next, we will be displaying photo's of our new display system incoporating (3) 21 inch monitors. You will want to see this!

For those of you who are curious, this item took me (4) 8 hour days to fully complete. Most of the main construction is made of wood covered by very thin aluminum sheeting. The throttle, reverser, flap and speed brake handles were machine sanded and took me quite some time. The fuel flow knobs were made from fingernail polish lids and internally attached to toggle switches. The flap detent bar was jigsaw cut from an old typewriter margin plate. So on and so on. I mention this for those of you wanting or actually building your own cockpit. You do not need the actual aircraft parts. Download pictures of want you want to replicate. Use your imagination and mentally picture how can you best resemble each part. If you have the right tools, you can build anything!


MORE TO COME LATER..............

Oct. 3 - Work continues. I have added some pictures showing the center pedestal upgrade. See below.
Oct. 13- The first of 3 CDU's is done and working.


 
Here she is. The fuel flow switches glow red if there is
an engine fire.

 
Another shot. Notice the flap detents. This works just like the real thing. In order to cycle detents, you must pull up on the handle as you change from setting to setting.

 
A side view of the quadrant. Notice to thrust reversers placed where they should be.

 
One last shot. As you can see, quite a bit of detail was added to this unit to replicate the real throttle quadrant as closely as possible.

 

Here is the real thing. I downloaded this from Boeing's website. This depicts the actual 767-400 throttle quadrant. I added this shot for comparison purposes.
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Here a frame has been constructed to hold the 9 inch monitor inside the center pedestal.

 
Now I've located the stand and monitor near where the center pedestal will be located. You can see the CDU is lying atop the monitor so I can judge its final position.

 
Here the outer walls of the pedestal have been attached.

 

Now you can see the the first CDU mounted to the pedestal. There will be 2 more mounted just in front of the thrust levers. All the com, xpdr, radio mangement etc. panels will be located along the left side. In the real 767-400, there would be room on the right side of the CDU for additional panels. Due to Dave's wheelchair and space restrictions, we had to scale this down somewhat. Regardless, it will look fantastic once completed.

 

As it currently looks on October 13, 2000.

 

A closeup of the CDU nearly completed. I'm quite proud how this unit turned out. I designed the CDU face plate working off of pictures from the real 767-400 CDU. After making the scaled diagram in AutoCadd, I then uploaded the DXF file to the laser cutter which precisely cut what I designed. A total of 69 microswitches are installed behind the keycaps. And the rest of the credit goes to Mr. Enrico Schiratti for his awesome software PROJECT MAGENTA which makes this baby come to life!