Couldn't resist buying this, as I want a realistic trim wheel for my pit but have no lathe to fab one and can't find a pre-made wheel or pulley that's cheaper and quite realistic enough:




Piper Tomahawk trim wheel; got it on eBay for about $45 including shipping.


Also ordered a mini-keyboard and separate number keypad... I'm going to make a simple slide-out tray for the keyboard so I can tuck it away when I don't need it, and the keypad will rest next to the trackball, just forward of the throttle quadrant.
They're both light-up models; that should either be helpful or annoying... we'll see.


Keyboard:



Keypad:


Trackball:




And oh, yes, almost forgot- I recently ordered a pair cheap plastic eyeball vents from Aircraft Spruce&Specialty:

They will go in the upper outboard corners of the panel, with some sort of cheap ducting to the outside of the nose box. Thinking of using ordinary PC case fans to push the air, although if I can mod a slot cooler so it sucks air in instead of blowing it out, those would be better, maybe (the exterior slots areready-made with grilles, much simpler install than interfacing a biscuit fan with the duct and mounting that to the box with a grill, etc... also, this ductwork needs to make a hard right-angle turn, so the slot coolers could be perfect. I guess I could reverse the polarity...).





Still a lot of fab to do, and of course the new PC and all the other electronics are nowhere near ready, but buying a few doodads is further inspiration to finish pulling together the structural components. Very excited!

I also have an absolutely brilliant idea for dealing with the left-hand joystick interfering with egress/ingress; and no, it doesn't involve mounting it on the door. I may post a sketch soon... it could be the cleverest idea I've had so far with this project.



Or maybe I'll wait to tell about it until I'm sure it'll work...




No major structural progress lately; been thinking and doodling, mostly, the last month or so... but I'm ready to move ahead, and will likely do quite a bit on it this coming weekend.

Willit Run wrote on Dec 29^th, 2006 at 12:48pm:


Sure.
Could be awhile... every time I start wrking on it again, I start re-designing.... 

And I should warn you... whoever gets to fly it also ends up on the list of People I'll Call to Help Me Move the Damned Thing Next Time I Move.