Oct 19 2021
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
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
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
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
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 …
Dec 20 2020
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 …
Dec 01 2020
The COVID-19 lockdown during spring with good weather was the start of a major refurbishing action of all cockpit interior parts. This included removing 2-3 layers of paint by sanding, filling and remodeling broken parts, sanding again, filling scratches, sanding again, painting with primer and with the RAL 7011 (gray) and 9001 (beige) Boeing colors …
Aug 06 2020
Thanks to Nick from the Airline Pilot’s Historical Society the Lufthansa B737-300 shell was outfitted with 4 Pitot Probes and 2 Angle of Attack vanes! Looks professional although these probes will never be used again. Now to something more serious: I’ve found the perfect location for the Cockpit Minibar: just right to the jump seat …
Apr 19 2020
This required quite some wiring and night shifts … and the rather important backlighting required some thinking and handcrafting as well. Result: almost ready to perform a regular startup procedure according to the checklist.
Apr 01 2020
Thanks to my colleague Jim Doyle from Desert Air Spares in California, two really neat Boeing 737 Ipeco J-Rail cockpit seats in working condition including headrests have arrived today. They are going to be refurbished and placed in the cockpit shell. But before that they play an important role to better suit body and soul …