CONDOR

Howdy All

Have been thinking about building a cockpit for a while now, just a little idea in the back of my head. However it occured to me the other day that I could possibly tie it in with my degree as a 4th year uni project, at the same time helping out my gliding club. Since I need a 'comerical angle' I could'market' it as a relitavly cheap portable gliding simulator for use by flying clubs as a promotional tool. This is of course exactly what my club would use it for!

So, the plan would be a simulator based inside an enclosed trailer. I would love to hear people's thoughts and ideas on this. Has a portable one been tried before?

Also, sponsorship. Since I am a poor uni student, I would certainly need backing. How succesful have others been with getting help in terms of money or equipment?

i have been doing a bit or research so am aware of some of the projects around. The polyt S effort is particularly impressive. Is anybody willing to help out with letting me effectively 'copy' systems that are known to work well. Since I am doing Industrial Design, the computing side of things is not something I would be getting much academic credit for.

Looking forward to replies

Cheers

Tom

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Tom
Reg-#: G-TOM
Comp-#: TW

I've been looking at some similar for clubs, but I think a trailer is too 'big'. I been looking at a 'fabric solution', using a metal folding frame. I started to build scaled prototypes over a year ago, but I had to abandon the project due to more important stuff I had to do, wedding, house move, working longer hours.....

Basically the 'cockpit' structure folds and locks into position representing a cockpit, complete with a 'seat'. A LCD monitor for the instruments, using Sim Meters system, and a cheap projector. When folded away, the storage space for the entire setup would be a boot of a modest sized european car.

A completely different project which I saw on the internet was a coversion of the rear section of a mobile home into a commerical aircraft sim. looked nice, cost him a arm and a leg thou'

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The British Gliding Association do have a portable simulator. It was built a couple of years ago and is used for shows and publicity. The only photo I have is from an exhibition which I helped out on a year or so ago.

It has a real glider fuselage, with working stick and rudders. The software was SFS4. The display was projected onto a screen ahead of the glider, the projector being positioned as to project the instrument section of the display onto a small panel where the real instrument panel would be.

The "Instructor" gets stick, rudders, a keyboard, mouse and no instrument panel!

The sides of the trailer flap out and up to provide light shielding on the screen.

I've flown a few "trial flights" from the back seat of the BGA sim (being a computer engineer qualified me, I'm not a real instructor!). I now have a lot more respect for what we put our poor instructors through whilst training!

I last flew it at the Canary Wharf gliding expo last year, and there was talk then about updating it.

I only have one very poor photo of the sim - taken with a old camera phone a couple of years ago

This is what it looked like when I was helping out with the instructing at the Earls Court AirExpo.

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That's where my photo was taken. April 2005? I was one of those representing Gransden.

SteveK

excellent! thanks for the leads so far! Is the one pictured above portable? I'm assuming so, but how does it pack up?

Thanks again

Tom

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Tom
Reg-#: G-TOM
Comp-#: TW

Hi,

My club is building a ASK-21 sim. We have made a metal frame with 4 wheels that fit exactly in the rails of our ASK-21 trailer. To stabilize it we have 4 legs that screw down and lift it of it's wheels. For instrument panels we are using 12 inch TFT screens behind the original plastic instrument boards. We haven't decided on the screen yet but we are planing a 225 degrees folding screen with 3 projectors. The beamers are on a separate frame to reduce vibrations when pilots move around in the sim. It's all build to fit in our ASK-21 trailer and we will be able to set it up in about 10 minutes on location when it's finished.

I'll take some pictures next time I'm back working on it. Waiting for parts at the moment. We have a budget of about 8000 euro's, half of which is for projectors and computers.

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PH-2729, WS

Hey Wikid

You wont be able to use Condor for that field of view I'm afraid. Condor is limited as to how wide it can go. The best (off the top of my head) is something like 2048x680 I think.

Cheers

Tom

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Tom
Reg-#: G-TOM
Comp-#: TW

I know but I'm running FSX, Condor, Silent wings and X-plane 10 on it. And we'll decide which one to use when the sim is finished.

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PH-2729, WS

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