Author's posts
Jan 25 2022
Making of the Integrated Standby Flight Display
The Integrated Standby Flight Display (ISFD) is used in all newer Boeing 737 jets. This instrument is thought to be a backup when all other (now digital) flight instruments fail. In the real aircraft it is a fully independent (in terms of power and sensors) and rather small replacement of the Primary Flight Display (PFD) …
Nov 20 2021
Smartphone Battery now lasts 6 days
I have wiped the Fairphone OS (a standard Android) of my 4 year old Fairphone 2 and replaced it with the Lineage OS 18 without any google play and google play services. The problem with this solution is that you have to search your apps by hand and many of the apps still depend on …
Oct 19 2021
Air Travel: How it could be …
To be honest, I have a larger personal conflict between my professional engagement as climate change scientist, my private engagement on low fossil fuel usage on one side and my unbroken enthusiasm for aviation on the other side. I try to solve it by not owning a car, using things for a long time, repairing …
Jul 15 2021
Fitting the MIP to the real Cockpit
I have bought the high quality MIP with glareshield from SISMO Soluciones and wanted to put it on top of the original B737-300 MIP stand and then mount both things into the real B737-300 cockpit shell. Nice idea. Of course the MIP stand totally changed from the -300 to the -800 (the FMC&lowerCDU bay is …
May 07 2021
Flight Management Computer using Rasperry Pi
Thanks to my colleague Piki from northern Germany and thanks to Dotsha747’s open source FMC PCB and hardware guidance I have been able to complete the first Flight Management Computer (FMC). It uses a Rasperry Pi 3B instead of the Rasperry Pi Zero recommended by Dotsha747 since I want to use a wired LAN connection …
May 07 2021
J-Rails Mounted
Thanks to Pedro von SimuJabs who was able to exactly replicate the Boeing 737-300 J-Rails I could now mount the original cockpit seats. Original J-Rails are very hard to get and the often replicated Boeing 737NG J-Rails are not compatible to the Boeing 737 Classic mounting holes. At the end, I had to still move …
Mar 10 2021
Where actually is the Minibar in a Boeing 737 Cockpit?
Nowhere. But I figured out that it is definitively a missing feature in a grounded Boeing 737 Cockpit. There is a perfect spot just above the foldable jump seat. And it can fit the adequate amount of glasses serving the maximum number of crew members (4) and a suitable amount of Grappa bottles for a …
Feb 28 2021
Management Primer (How not to …)
More often than not managers are so busy they fail to think, use intuition and act creatively. In a time when lightspeed governs decisionmaking and e-mails are more important than people, managers often ignore to consult collective intelligence of their people and act with simple (mostly well meant) but self-centric measures to deal with a …
Feb 28 2021
Quarantäne mit Familie, aber wie?
Liebe Kindes- und Erwachsenenschutzbehörde. Wir haben für unseren Sohn vom Kantonsärztlichen Dienst des Kantons Bern eine 10-tägige Quarantäne verordnet bekommen, mit der Bitte “Wenn sie mit weiteren Familienangehörigen zusammenleben, müssen sie sich von diesen isolieren” Wie sie sich vorstellen können, gestaltet sich dies mit einer 5-köpfigen Familie in einer Wohnung nicht so einfach. Wir sind …
Dec 20 2020
Thermal Insulation using Sheep Wool
There are all-natural thermal insulation materials out there. The Swiss company Fisolan AG is specialized in turning sheep wool into thermal insulation blankets ready to be used to insulate buildings … or commercial aircraft. Unlike glass wool the sheep wool blankets can be handled without health protection measures. So that is how the Cockpit looked …