New King Air Gauges

[Guest mmorrell]

Roger..."The work is amazing complicated and I had not the time and patience to achieve it. Each instruments is a new challenge."My point exactly :)

[Guest MikePowell]

Mitch,Take a look at the forum on ViperPit.org. In the "Steam Gauges" thread, Craig Rochester posted some of his work on modifying an altimeter.Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

[Guest mmorrell]

Mike,Try as I might - I wasn't able to find this thread... did a search and found "Craigs Pit" but nothing on the modifications... I would like to see it - can you be more specific on the URL? Sorry if I'm being dense :(

[Guest MikePowell]

Mitch,After scratching my head a few seconds, I realized I had pointed you to a forum that you must register to access. ViperPit is tightly focused on F-16 sims. You can see only a fraction without logging on.What Craig did was to puncture the vacuum capsule and reseal it. He then connected the altimeter to a controllable pressure source. The source was made by putting an eccentric cam on an RC servo, and using the cam to move the adjustment on the regulator. I believe Matt Wietlispach has made use of a number of real A/C instruments and gauges. His site has not been updated for some time. I don't know what he currently doing.Are you interested in modifying / building from scratch / or..?Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

[Guest mmorrell]

Mike,Thanks... good to know I'm not as inept as I sometimes feel :)While I find it intriguing to work on that level, I'm neither old enough nor young enough to get that involved with every instrument on a "nuts and bolts" level- I simply don't thave the time at this point in my life, so I'm going with mostly commercial stuff. That's one reason why finding Marco was a godsend for me. I have more money than time at this point (but not that much of either). As you can see from the pic at the start of the thread, these are a very good representation of the real thing. I am modifyiing plenty of real parts such as gear lever, electrical power panel, but to modify the 38 some-odd steam gauges in a KingAir is way more than I am willing to commit to :)My next project for Flight Illusion is my fuel gauges and flap position indicator. I assure those who are wed to using only real parts that although I appreciate your dedication to the real thing, N714TX will be a very high fidelity sim when completed.

[Guest MikePowell]

Well, you are certainly getting some nice looking gear.I look forward to following your progress.Mikewww.mikesflightdeck.com

[tigert 0]

At some point of the hobby one reaches the point where the money involved could also be used to acquire and maintain a private pilots license with a reasonable amount of flying hours. Our sim is low-budget because I want to fly for real as well, and avgas is not cheap :/But it's a good question to ask. Unfortunately for some people simming is not about choosing between sim or real life flying for various reasons (medical etc) -- but for those of us who could get a PPL, it's a good question to ask oneself along the way..Then again I do enjoy the building part as well, so this hobby is a very rewarding one even though I also enjoy flying on the real plane. At least in Finland, it seems that many sim pilots are having their own community, dreaming of flying for real, and it almost seems to them that the only possibility for them to be real pilots is throuhg becoming a professional airline pilot. However, there are many many other ways to have aviation as a great hobby too - if you have a local airport, go and have a look, see if there is a flying club with friendly atmosphere and good people - you might even get to see their planes and chat with them.I mean, some people put more money into golf clubs.. and I dont have anything against golf :) but you get the idea..//Tuomas

[Guest mmorrell]

Agreed - big time. I love to fly the real thng and do so every chance I get with pilot friends. Breaking the rules - they often let me fly most of the time except near the airport. I have 16 hours of formal instruction in the C150 (at $90/hr) but found myself with so little time that I often went a month or more between lessons. Often when I had time, the crosswinds at N12 were gusting in excess of 13 knots or it was crappy out. Last year we had something like 4 out of 16 weekends that it didn't rain.So while I pursued my PPL ever so slowly I got in to building the sim. Over time it took over my discretionary income and now over the course of the last 4 years I have come to this ($12K or so). Indeed, only the most untalented of pilots wouldn't have or be close to a PPL by this time, which would be 133 hours. But the sim kind of sneaked in and stole all my money :)I intend on getting my license after I retire - another 10 years or so, and I really try to fly-by-the-book, i.e; not to learn bad habbits by simming for years. Time will tell.In the interim I really enjoy it and can drink the occasional beer while preflighting the aircraft