Lelystad day 1

Rain in November in the Netherlands? Who would have thought it. It didn't seem to impact the crowds however

 

Pleased I beat the rush and was able to wait inside the building. Still took 20 minutes to get through the cashier's desk. I guess they're not used to handling such crowds. I'm also guessing there's not a lot to do in Lelystad! The turnout was quite impressive. Listening to the voices in the line, not only were the Dutch there in force, I heard French, English, German and Italian.

As for the show floor itself, mostly enthusiasts or local sim clubs showing their chops, albeit in an odd, non self conscious, staring into their screens while others look on way. A public exhibition of their gaming fetish before paying voyeurs. 

The vendors on the floor were the usual suspects. Revolultion Simproducts, simparts.de, Engravity, Flight Illusion and (be still my beating heart) CP Flight. I made a bee line to the CP flight desk to see what they had to sell that day (sadly, most of the guys were just taking orders). Angel rummaged through the "for sale" box and offered up 2 nav radios, 2 comm radios, an ADF and ATC. Only thing he didn't have that was on my shopping list was the trim unit.

What he did have (will post photo when I get home) was a new fire control panel. It looks stunning. Angel ran through the features and lit up all the lights in an ad hoc demo for me. Pricing sounded reasonable (I won't post anything before he does) and as with all of his gear the quality is top notch.

Back at the Revolution Simproducts area, Eren informed me that the pedal kit I had pre-ordered for "pick up at the show" wasn't available... He'll strip down  a demo unit for me tomorrow for me to take home. Hmm, not impressed.

I must admit, after about 90 minutes I'd seen everything I wanted to see and was done. For any of you who are considering traveling from afar to visit this show, I recommend you have other things to see and do while you're here. In other words, don't plan a whole weekend around the show.

Tonight we're off for the dinner at the rather unfortunately named Flantuas (Flatus?) restaurant.

Lelystad - first report

At the sim builders show in Lelystad, the Netherlands this weekend. Spent yesterday evening with Ian Sissons and Eren and Oral from Revolution Simproducts. All splendid chaps. Helped unload the van and got a sneak preview of their new yoke set up and of course the rudder pedals and TQ. There wasn't any time to set anything up but I did get to see (and inspect) some of the components from the TQ and the build quality is superb. You can tell that Eren puts his heart and soul into his work.

Eren committed (over a beer) to getting my TQ shipped between November 10th and 25th. Looks like my December will be busy!

While propping up the bar in the Lelystad Airport hotel, Mark Verschaeren from Flight Illusion came over. Mark is friendly and approachable - I enjoyed the conversation. Even got my digs in about why the holes in his gauges don't line up with the ones in Engravity's MIP! (see prior post). I'll be tweaking Robert about it too if I get the chance. Sadly though, I let the side down - jet lag kicked in around 11:00pm and I just had to turn in.

Show opens in about an hour. I'll head over there, pick up my pedals from Eren and check out the other vendors. I'll take photos but don't expect to see anything hi-res until my return home next week - I left the camera cable behind...

Home again - briefly

While in Europe I passed through Paris for a couple of days. Finally got through to Revolution Simproducts - my TQ is finished. Hurrah! I would have driven over to pick it up in person, except it needs to go through a couple of days of tests - boo! I decided to leave the guys alone to do what they need to. A pity really, it would have been nice to see their operation but I couldn't justify the ride out to Roissy. I'll see the team in Lelystad next month anyway.

Now I'm counting down to when the unit will ship. Good chance I'll be back in Europe when it does (I leave on Saturday).

My timing was perfect though for getting in and out of France. As you may be aware, there are strikes and demonstrations going on right now. Fortunately I dropped the rental car off just as the lines at the gas stations were starting. Also lucky to fly out while CDG had jet fuel (although our pilot did sneak up to a Lufthansa jet at 36,000 ft to siphon off enough juice to get us stateside). Air traffic controllers are about to strike too, again, lucky me.

In the unlikely event I get to work on any construction this week, I'll post again before departure.

Octoberfirst (post)

First trip to Europe looms on Saturday. No build to report and no update on where my throttle quadrant is. Repeated emails to Revolution Simproducts have gone unanswered - I hope this isn't a bad sign... Maybe they are just busy preparing for the FS weekend in Lelystad...

What I have been doing though is trying to land at Innsbruck, RW08, via the BRENO 2B approach and a circling final from ABSAM. The gauntlet was thrown down by Bernd and he has been more successful than I. Although I did note on the playback that he came within 260 feet of auguring in before turning onto the base leg...

In an attempt to improve my performance, I downloaded and installed the latest versions of Project Magenta, including the LOWI terrain add on. Curses! I should of backed up the old files first - the darned thing stopped working! In particular the PFD and ND software disappears from the computer whenever I run it (either that or it's moving itself to a different folder I've yet to find). There's always something to figure out.

Also, my sister was in town and surprisingly wanted to see the sim in action. Naturally I bludgeoned the landing while she was watching... What was touching was that she was really getting into it and was trying to figure out what the hell I was doing. Sis did an excellent job of lowering the gear when requested, while her hubby worked the flaps. If only their flight back home next day went as smoothly - they were delayed by 17 hours... Sometimes the sim world works better than the real thing.

Final note, Lulu fixed the boo boo on the Boeing 737 technical guide, as reported in the last post. Captain Bernd awaits the goofed one.

A bientot.

Success!

Finally got the control column set up so it will stay in any position - no more yoke flopping around. It ain't pretty but it works. I figured the problem was that the lever points were too close to the fulcrum. To gain more leverage I needed to turn the strut supports at 90 degrees to the way I had them. Affixing to a round column was going to be a challenge so I cut down a couple of bits of plastic I had in the shop, temporarily screwed them together and drilled my mounting holes through both in one go (this ensured that they were equal on both sides). I then mounted the whole assembly and tested with just the 150n struts attached. It was almost enough to keep the column steady although I noted some slop. Once the other 100n struts were added, the thing is rock solid in any position.

At some point I may replace the plastic pieces with aluminum plates of the same size. For now though they will suffice. I know that the top struts are now proud of the frame but once the decking board goes down on top and I fashion a dome to slide down the column, you won't be able to see it.

Next for the yoke, I'll be putting in more substantial travel limiters (the little wooden blocks you see weren't up to the job), hooking up the potentiometers, will wire it all up and cross my fingers.

At Gianluca's suggestion, I purchased the excellent Boeing 737 Technical Guide from Lulu publishing. Interesting concept - you order the book and Lulu prints it for you. What wasn't so interesting is that their binding guy goofed:

All well until page 172, then it jumps to page 354 and counts down to page 171... whoops! So if you're reading this Bernd, assuming Lulu doesn't want this copy back and they send me a new one, this one's for you!

What else? Well, looks like I'll be heading back to Europe 3 more times between now and Thanksgiving (2 for work, 1 for pleasure) so the current slow progress will continue. Sorry.

Middle of August eh?

Ok, in my last post I said I would have an update by mid August. It's the end of the month - it just snuck up on me. So where are we? Well the drywall is in and the tile guy is there today working on the bathroom. The landscaping crew is in full swing and the carpenter is putting some doors and trim in. I've been painting. None of this is related to the sim of course...

No progress to report. I did try the 150n struts in the yoke and found that it still wasn't offering up enough resistance to stop the whole column from flapping around. Back to the drawing board there - will try changing the fulcrum point to see if that does the trick. I'm taking some time off work next week and we're heading out of town - will take the yoke assembly with me to experiment. Or maybe I'll set it up on the passenger side of the car and will amaze people with my right hand seat driving skills, while the wife crouches down in the left hand slot, working the pedals.

September is the month I should see my throttle quadrant from Revolution Simproducts. Waiting to hear back from them in terms of a delivery date.

My mind though has been pre-occupied with the external visuals. I'm thinking of going for a set up very similar to the one Ivar Hestnes built. You really should check out the link, it looks awesome! Best I can tell from the information gleaned here, I'll need to upgrade the main computer I'm using. Thinking of building my own, rather than buying a pre-built. This should be interesting...

All for now.

Treading water while waiting for new pedals...

Since I'm planning on attending the geek fest in Lelystad later this year, I decided to take Revolution Simproducts up on their offer for a pedal kit (sorry, none left). While doing my usual poke around of what other people are up to, I noticed these excellent video guides from Ian on how to put the pedals together. Now the good news for my friend Bernd in Germany is that I have a spare set of CH products pedals for him, and possible a yoke too, if I ever get my home brew one finished.

Speaking of which, I ordered up some heftier gas springs for the yoke. The 100 Newton ones in there now aren't strong enough to keep the top heavy yoke from flopping forward or back. Let's see if the 150 ones work, if not I'll double them up with the ones already installed.

The wiring on the house remodel I'm working on is all but done, meaning I can spend time on the sim again in the very near future. Next weekend we're out of town (finally a break) so expect another update mid August.