Single seat cockpit

[Shawn]

More progress today

[Ronson2k9]

Looks pretty slick. Ronson like..

[Nick1150]

WOW that's going to be soon a great toy !!!

[Shawn]

This started of tinkering with some ideas and ended up being a parking brake/landing gear lever. I just have to add the walnut nut and a plate for the gear detent.

[Ronson2k9]

Um a parking brake for a Helicopter?

[Shawn]

Who said it was a helicopter pit? I'll fly just about anything so I'm making it a multi use pit, the collective will rotate out of the way when flying fixed wing. The parking brake is also going to work as a progressive brake lever that you pull and move to set the parking brake.

Edit: some helicopters have wheels...

[Ronson2k9]

Oh I know some have wheels. I have a feeling and could be wrong that they don't have brakes for them? Great that you're making a multi use pit. What I was thinking though it was going to be like a half and half (left side aircraft/right side rotary). You could also do something like THIS to. Not sure if they use this for fire spotting it perhaps is bit slow for that but has great visibility so could work if they where at a fire base near the fire for keeping track of crews and the like.

Just a couple more thoughts. I notice you have a 'floor' but you could make a 'sub floor'. This would let you put your collective and rudder peddles and associated mechanics beneath you. With a strong enough frame you could add wheels to make it pretty mobile or at least able to move about easier.

Great work so far though I like your engineering skills...

Cheers
Ron

[Shawn]

Thanks Ron, my engineering skills look better when you take the photos in a dark garage with a cell phone. I am planning to put a sheet metal cover over the cyclic gimbal that will run from the botton of the seat forward, over the curved frame. Wheels are a good idea, I don't have much room in my basement so being able to push this thing around would be ideal. I am planning to build a seperate monitor/switch framework that will sit in front of the seat and hold a single monitor that will display GaugesFactory guages and a few switches/rotaries to control some more common functions. I'm having a blast finally getting to build something.

Years ago I designed a Sikorsky R-4 for Fs9, it had a parking brake on the floor.

[roppeca]

Awesome , awesome !

[Shawn]

Thanks Roppeca, I pretty excited to get the Hall effect sensors installed into the stick and give her a go! I made some changes to the pedals so that I could make some small adjustments to the pedal distance.