2004 A.D.

August, 18th – 8 months no news.. but the project is still going on – better than ever before. There were picture updates from time to time, now I’ve got the time to post some news, too.
January

• Gearlever nearly done

February

• the NoseSection is done, including the new Simpeds F-16+ pedals.

• I found the missing backrest cushion for the ejection seat:

March/April

• The hull has been done. I used 3mm foam infill panels, which are very easy to work with and very light.
• I got some new original parts from a new, veeeeeeeery nice guy (Hi, Marc! *g*):
  • Original Aces-II ejection handle
  • Standby ADI
  • 2 HydPress gauges
  • Position lights and a throttlearmreplica
• Since the real stick uses force transducer for input, WhiteEagle from the Frugalsworld forum posted a mod for the Cougar, to implement this feature.
  It took some time to get used to it, but it’s more then worth the money!!!
  Now I can mount the stick on it’s right position an height, without hurtin my knuckles on the sidewall 😉

April, 30th

• An important day – after months of planning/building/sweating/.. the simulator has been transported from my parent’s house to our flat in Graz.
• This is the time to give a big THANK YOU!!! to my girlfriend Maria. She suggested to convert our dining room into a sim-room for me!
• First impression when the sim was “online” – phenomenal! It’s an undescribable feeling to sit _IN_ the cockpit instead in front of a desk.

June

• Since woodwork is nearly finished now, the electronics part is going to start ;). Cabling of the ICP is done and all buttons an switches are functional through the KE-72!

Juli

• The AVIONICS POWER panel is done and connected:
• I got a cheap and nice 19″-case, which will house all the electronics and also will be used as monitor stand:

2003 A.D.

December, 21st, 2003 – Things haven’t completely gone like I intended them to, so I’m still doing the outer hull of the pit, instead of already installing the electronic components :-/.
Doesn’t matter, the tube looks much better than I expected, and rework of the ICP is already done. As during the start of the project, planning of some components like the glareshield or the nose section takes more time than building it.
Real life ™ also takes most of my time, so I’m looking forward to the following holidays, hopefully the hull will become finished.

July, 2nd, 2003 – No update for some time, but now I’ve done it again ;). Actually I’m doing multiple things at the same time (no, no real multitasking, just time-sharing *g*): the hull for the left console starts to look really nice, also the new gear lever, the throttle modification and a PDF-documentation about the project are in the works.

May, 2nd, 2003 – At last! The base for the pit has been finished today. During some “research” at the cellar I found a 3x2m chipboard 🙂 – more wood to work with.

April, 20th, 2003 – Wow, 4 days of constructing 😉 Both instrument panels are finished, just painting needed.
I’m already working on the 2nd MFD for the left side. The first selfmade instrument (VVI) has been finished except the needle, I’ll post an “Instruments How-To ” during this week.
The center console looks really ok now, 80% of the InstrumentSelect and FuelQuantitySelect panel have been finished, so only HSI and AOA are missing…

March, 29th, 2003 – Last weekend was a very productive one. The ICP part of the center console has nearly been finished, also the small glareshield is done, but sadly I couldn’t mount the airvent yet.

March, 24th, 2003 – With the help of a friend of the family, Mr. Walter Schmidt, the airvent part of the center console looks abolutely brilliant! Thx a lot!!!
I was also able to mount the ADI – pics will follow next weekend.

March, 4th, 2003 – At last the middle console looks like intended, even the T-handle and airvent from AGT have arrived :-). The first cardboard prototype of the ICP is also ready, the wood version should be finished as soon as possible.

January, 20th, 2003– Bad news 🙁 – my father had a strokelet 2 weeks ago, but he’s already getting better :-).

2002 A.D.

December, 4th, 2002 – A lot of things have been going on through the last weeks:

I tested the Ferrettronics chips and the first servo did all the movements, I wanted it to do *g*.
During the next days I will do an update to the techbook page, with an overview of my network config and a description of my way of building the instruments.

After my experiences in the Drakensimulator, the “feeling” of the plasticmade joystick just wasn’t right anymore – so I decided to purchase a Thrustmaster HOTAS Cougar. Completely made of metal, it feels quite more realistic then the old one.

Ebay had quite a lot of great items during the last weeks, so I really couldn’t resist *g*:
An original F-16 checklist! 😀
An original F-16 Instrument/Panel
The eyeballvent of the middle console

As I told you in the last update, I’m doing a new middleconsole construction – the instrument console are already available in a raw version.
At Conrad Electronics I found the right buttons for the MFDs.

November 1st, 2002 The ejection seat itself has been finished at the beginning of October (except the backrest), now I’m doing all the small details.

I decided to work on the instrument- and middleconsoles after finishing the seat. The consoles will be made again from scratch, to make them more stable and also more accurate.

September 23rd, 2002 Today has been the BIG DAY *g* – a visit to AFB Zeltweg. You can find a report about the trip here – Zeltweg

September, 7th, 2002 The ejection seat is beginning to take shape. Today my father and me finished most of the backrest, so hopefully the seat will get its complete shape next week.

UNBELIEVEABLE!!I got an invitation of Austria’s DOD to visit Zeltweg AFB for a day, and do some flying in the military’s Draken simulator! Here is the article (german), that started everything.

August 2002 – At least – the seat pan of the ACES-II has been finished up to 75%, just the sitting plane and small details are missing.

Again my project got the attention of the media: Austria’s 3rd biggest daily newspaper “Kleine Zeitung” did a 2sided report. scan will follow.

July 2002 – Finishing the ejection last longer than expected. I received some metal parts from a friend, and he also made me a good offer for bigger parts.

MiHi did it again on Ebay *g*, the original ACES-II seat cushion.

July, 5th – 12th – “Camp Nassau” of the 1st Guns Richthofen
A great party, one week of flying Falcon 4.0, and I met A LOT of new friends!
Camp Nassau Homepage – a lot of pics.

June, 2002 – “Am Schauplatz” was broadcasted… 2 min 20 secs for 5 hours work *g*, but at least it was a big advertisement for my project.

The Austrian Air Force did an info campaign about the new Fighter in Graz, and I had the opportunity to sit in the ejection seat of the Saab “Draken”. One of the guys there also saw “Am Schauplatz”, and maybe I will be able to fly with him in a Saab Saphire some aerobatics.

The first of the redesigned panels has been finished – the combined “SNS PWR/NUCLEAR CONSENT”.

May, 2nd – A lot of things happened during the last months, but I just managed to update the homepage right now.

It’s nearly impossible to remember all detailed things, so I’ll just give a short overview, what happened till now.

Electronics
In the middle of July 2001 I decided to order a KE72 Keyboard Encoder Module. This card lets me map 72 digital inputs to keystroke macros, which should be enough for the most imporant switches and buttons. More info on the KE72 can be found on the homepage of Hagstrom Electronics.
August 2001- JIPPPIIIEE, I actually managed to get hold of an EPIC!
Although it’s just an older “C” version, I do have 256 digital inputs, which should be enough for all switches and buttons in my cockpit. More info on R&R Electronics‘ homepage.

I also thought a lot about connecting the PC to servo- and steppermotors for the analogue instruments.
Although there are some homebuild solutions around on the net, I decided to use the Ferrettronics chips for this task. As soon as I have news about this topic, I’ll publish them here, of course.

To drive LEDs for warn- and indicator lights, I will use a chip, which can drive 35 LEDs and is quite simple to control through the parallel port. A very BIIIIG “Thankyou” to Rob Favre, who offered me 2 of this chips for free!!

Panels & Consoles
At least I finshed the frames for left and right consoles with the consoles mounted. Again, my father helped me a lot, accomplishing my goal :).

The panels are the same as before, but I already designed the new ones, to make backlighting possible. Construction of the new panels is one of the main tasks now (April 17th, 2002), together with the construction of the ACES-II ejection seat replica.
The ICP has been reworked, to nearly fit the original measures.

I got the first of two 12″ monitors, which will be mounted behind the frontconsole and display MFDs, RWR and DED.

Reportage about my Cockpit! The ORF (Austrian Television) found my website 🙂 – the reportage series “Am Schauplatz” themed “People and Aviation, focused on FastJets” will also include a story about the construction of my cockpit.
Doing the filming was quite funny, actually it was also very insteresting for me, to see “professionals” doing their job. As contribution, the ORF paid the materials necessary for building the ejection seat replica, after I found the original ACES-II parachute container on ebay.

2001 A.D.

July, 7th – Today I put together all parts, my cousin already tested the pit.

July, 1st – My pedals, which I got at ebay, have arrived.

June, 20th – My father helped me to lengthen the TQS shaft.

April, 10th – The new pics are online, I also changed the layout of the site a bit.

March, 31st – After a longer break, I finally managed to get on with the cockpit. The right console looks really nice now.

2000 A.D.

June, 8th – I registered my own domain today: www.michis.net
June, 7th – Today I started with the new design of the website.
June, 1st – “Lock On No. 2 – The F-16” from Verlinden Books arrived today – a great source for all people interested in the F-16

May, 15th – A lot of time has passed, but I was able to finish theWarning Lights Panel

January, 10th – YES!!! The left console is complete, I also had time to finish the middle console, too.

January, 4th – The left console is nearly complete, I decided to include the “Electric” and “EPU” panels, should be done shortly.