How about sitting in the Captains seat of a Boeing 767 lined up on runway 27R at Heathrow heading for Frankfurt late Sunday afternoon. 180 passengers are eager to come home. There are 10 A/C inline at your tail. You've passed the checklists. Flaps, A/T, F/D, RTO, clock - all set. ATC has just given you takeoff clearance. You push firmly the throttle forward, feel the forces and hear the deep sound from two roaring P&W engines pushing 120000 lb. 80 knots, V1, and rotate - airborne, gear up. You keeping an eye on speed, F/D and climb rate while talking ATC, switching radio and autopilot, more ATC, flaps, NAVaids, TCAS, alarms, flight-plan, checklist, other traffic.........phuuuh, very exciting!!!

As real as it gets

- at home!

News

Spring 2011	Again time for an update - now more or less only pictures. Not enough time to add comments etc.	Added Flash Photo gallery under MIP1, MIP2 and MIP3 sections as an experiment and pumped up with too many pictures;-) - all I have both good and bad quality. A small piece of the OverHead as well
April 2010	Long time no see. Finally some small progress. Added submenu's to the Cockpit menu selection - hopefully easier to navigate and easier for me to add information.	At the moment adding some text to the Glare and MIP section - a lot to catch up with. Started here:
Summer 2009	About to finish the first MIP panel. More info. later.	Playing with some 3D - mostly for fun.
Spring 2009	. A lot of small steps forward: Finalizing the second VOR and the rest of the MCP & VOR's housing Mounting and testing Short clip from the first test. Real test of the index wheel and with a clip here .
Jan,Feb, 2009	Second upgrade of CNC unit. A new Z-axis and - a new tool on the table - an index wheel or a mini-lathe.
Fall, 2008	It has been a busy period at work but in between made some more drawings and started on the MCP. From now on the Cockpit section will be where I mostly do the updates and I will start / continue in the glare section and make this complete before I go to the next - which I believe will be the MIP. May be I will try to do some work on Yoke and/or TQ.
July, 2008	Summer in Norway, but some progress anyway. The CNC unit don't demand any vacation, so it's running hours a day without complaining. 3 x Display-II cards and 2 x PCB for VOR panel is ready. Also some progress on panel making / testing. Check Techtip pages.
May, 2008	Received a huge box from Mouser with most of what I need to do the cockpit. Encoders, switches, led's, rotaries etc. The major part still on the block is LED-display. Trying to find cheap white 7-segment is not easy.
May, 2008	Initial testing of Th2go from Matrox - approximate 105 degrees FOV will be a good start. 20-25 FPS running FSX with quite high settings inclusive the VC (soon without I hope - another 5-10 FPS)
May, 2008	While waiting for components from Mouser ($400), I managed to get some drawings "out the door" - MCP&VOR. Not 100% ready, but this is how far I've come.
April, 2008	New spindle motor for the CNC unit
April, 2008	Received two Programming Units for PIC micro controllers from China. $16 each!!!!
March, 2008	First panel cut - VOR
March, 2008	First Korry button.
March, 2008	Milestone 1. Web on the air.

Why doing this?

Well - this question I've been asking myself many times lately and still don't get 100% correct answer, but the fever will not normalize. I know others look at us as some freaky lunatics - asking; have you visited your psychiatrist lately? But I don't care; just have to give it a try. See how far I can come with firmly and smart planning with the few resources I have. We are talking about a Boeing 767-300 full cockpit replica installed in a small room with 180 degrees "outside" view.

And the reason is quite simple. Besides the top story dealing with high level simulation with real people - both in A/C and at ATC positions - following real procedures, this is a hobby where I can combine most of my interests in one single task:

• A general interest in flying - living 40km from ENGM and 10km from ENKJ near Oslo, Norway.
• Highly computerized - heavy PC's, graphics, networking, programming, audio....
• Exciting software - FS2004/FSX, SIOC, FSUIPC, WideFS, FSInn, FS Navigator, Active Sky and of course Level-D 767-300 and LEKSEECON
• Stress my interest in mechanics - for the moment building a CNC machine. You can guess why......
• A very social and active community - all helping each other concerning both building and flying.
• Learning something every day.

There are a few "downsides" (compensated somewhat by looking 10 years ahead)

• Money
• Lack of spare time

How? - The big question

First some important questions/statements which everybody dedicated to this hobby have to go through.

• Available space - 5, 10, 20.... square meters
• Available money now and in near future
• Available spare time.
• Decide which cockpit to build and stay with the decision - 1 or 2 seats, jet or propeller, light or heavy - a long process.
• Buy, build or both - there is a growing business out there which can give you an easier but more expensive ride to the goal.
• Exact replica or something close.
• Moveable and modular.
• External view, visuals - LCD's' or projector(s)
• Compute power needed.
• Flyable during building (a must!)
• ...............just add to the never ending list.

I've used several months on this first phase of planning and with a few up's and down's. After passing line 1,2 and 3 in the list above and testing several FS aircrafts candidates from small propellers to jumbo's, I ended up with an add on to FS/FSX - Boeing 767-300ER from Level-D Simulation. The reasons are many - here are some not prioritized:

• A general aircraft with the capability to cross the big oceans but also doing intercity.
• Both a passenger and a cargo jet and still in production.
• Very flyable - precise and a very exact and complete simulation of the original A/C. Thanks to Level-D Simulation
• Easy integration of components like switches, pushbuttons, encoders, LED's and LED-display. Thanks to Nico Kaan & Opencockpits.
• Fairly easy to build - mostly Home Depot materials.
• One single (powerful) PC running FS, Visuals and graphical instrument in the cockpit. One PC taking care of hardware interfacing (IOcards/SIOC), WideFS, weather (ActiveSky) and Online flying & communication (Vatsim & FSInn)

This is actually the status to day - spring 2008. Decided on aircraft, software, utilities & interfacing hardware (IOboards from Opencockpits). Been through the first successful tests of switches and LED just to get familiar with FS, LEKSEECON (Nico) & SIOC (Opencockpits).

I've decided to build everything myself - just buying electronic components and hard to find/make parts. The building is a major part of this hobby - not just flying. The CNC machine is ready to do the job from routing panels, engraving text, produce PCB, Korry-housing and buttons & knob in 2,5D - may be even closer to full 3D in a while when I'm ready with the fourth axis.

The first Corel drawings of the MIP and MCP are almost ready. Spend many hours in Corel to get the details as close to original as possible.

So, here we go. Check out the Techtip & CNC sections which is where the project starts out. Cockpit section shows just current status of my desktop simulator, but will be supplied with the real thing long the way.

About myself.

2009; I'm a 56 years old "boy" living just outside Oslo (Fetsund) - Norway. A family of 5 - wife and 3 sons (14, 23 & 26 years). My occupation is in computer business working as a Sales Engineer, taking care of products from Oracle/Sun for a local dealer.

Please contact me if you have any questions / comments.