Simulator

For those that have an interest, I have put together these few pages of pictures to help show the ever changing process of building a home based helicopter simulator. The Bell 206B JetRanger cockpit was salvaged from a roll over accident that had caused some damage to the helicopter's front left side. All of the original flight controls, gauges, instrument panel, doors, seats, and windscreens had already been removed before I acquired the cockpit. The floor pan had also been removed, so 3/4" plywood was used for the base and floor, and to stiffen the cockpit at the back. I fabricated a few aluminum panels for the inner and outer bottom door sills and repaired the left side damage somewhat with fiberglass cloth and resin.

A lot of time has past since this webpage was first started and I have continued to refine the flight controls and computer related components. The simulator is used for testing new flight simulator software and hardware, and as a result, I've been able to incorporate some of the prototypes of my newest flight controls as you will see in the photos below. These days most of my "simulator time" has gone into building flight controls for other simulator builders, which leaves little time for my own.

The simulator is now sitting on an experimental motion platform. This platform base will allow cockpit movement in three directions (pitch, roll, and yaw) and will take it's direction from the attitude of the computer generated aircraft in FSX. Most of the frame work is finished but the "fine tuning" is still ahead, and only then will I know what changes will have to be made. From what I have experienced so far, I'm sure there will be some.

Another recent change is that the cockpit's center windshield divider has been removed to allow for a wide screen scenery visual system which will be totally enclosed to the cockpit. It's another experiment, but the idea is to block out the local surroundings while allowing the scenery display to move with the cockpit, now that it is mounted on the motion platform.

Below is a breakdown and description of some of the components that make up the simulator, starting with the flight controls. Hopefully some of this will be of some use to someone just starting out and looking for ideas.

This collective is made from aluminum and was the first prototype for the collectives that I now make for other simulator builders. The collective incorporates a twist grip throttle and a spring loaded mechanical idle release button. The throttle grip has a detent position that interacts with the idle release button for realistic simulated Bell 206 startup and shutdown procedures. Accurate turbine engine starts are made possible in FSX with the Dodosim 206 FSX software add-on from Dodosim Flight Simulations.

I'm still using my original collective base which uses plastic gears to increase potentiometer arc travel. This base is simply a couple of 3/16" thick angle iron pieces and a 1/2" bolt, with a little welding thrown in. The gears are "recycled" from an old printer. The potentiometer is mounted to a swing arm and the spring keeps the gears meshed without any noticeable backlash. The black knob is used for the collective friction adjustment.

Information on my latest collectives can be found here.

This Bell 206 cyclic grip and stick from another 206 helicopter was "recycled" into this project.

The cyclic controller is fabricated from 6061-T6 aluminum and is secured to the floor under the seat base. The two potentiometers and the two cyclic grip switches are wired to a Plasma-Lite V2 USB controller.

This cyclic controller uses two precision potentiometers for pitch and roll axis control. The potentiometers are driven with a small timing pulley, 1/4" wide cog type timing belt, and a 4" aluminum drive disc. By using the belt and pulley setup the relatively short throw of the cyclic control stick is converted to significantly more arc travel of the potentiometer, resulting in a smoother and more sensitive controller with no backlash.

The potentiometer shafts are not meant to be "heavily side loaded" so the cog drive belt tension is just snug - not tight!

It's possible to use an intermediate driven shaft supported by ball bearings and coupled direct to the end of the potentiometer's shaft to take the side loading. This would probably increase the life of the potentiometer somewhat, although I've been using similar setups to the one above for years in my cockpit and haven't had any problems with side loading, backlash, or premature pot failures. For the home based simulator I believe it makes sense to control costs and use the less expensive conductive plastic precision rotary type potentiometers. When connected to a 10-bit USB interface controller they are extremely accurate for helicopter controls. They are reliable, readily available, inexpensive, and easy to replace if the need should arise.

This cyclic controller is a "weight-balanced system", there are no springs used for a centering effect, which means the controller grip will stay where you put it. There is a friction brake that can be used for standard 206 checklist procedures. It can be set for no friction or completely lock the controller by turning the black knob just in front of the seat base.

More information on my single and dual control cyclic controllers can be found here.

The pedal set shown here is made from 6061-T6 aluminum and was my first "self-contained" (potentiometer and drive) pedal prototype. With this design, I've tried to incorporate a heavy duty pedal set which keeps the "helicopter type" pedal action, and also protect the moving parts and electronics. Inside the pedal housing a cog belt drive system for the potentiometer utilizes about 350 degrees of rotation out of the total 360 degrees available, which makes for very smooth and deliberate tail rotor control.

The Bell 206 instrument panels are simple and compact. This makes it easy to display all of the gauges from a single LCD monitor.

Shown here is the 1/8" thick instrument panel overlay which is made from a piece of Masonite. This panel allows the computer generated gauges and instruments from a 20" LCD monitor (4:3 aspect ratio) to show through. The black gauge face rings are sections of 2" I.D. and 3" I.D. ABS plastic pipe turned on a lathe and glued to the panel with a two-part epoxy.

Push button momentary switches have been installed for the TOT light test and warning horn mute. The push button switches are mounted in contoured aluminum rings that have been turned on the lathe to accommodate the length of the switch. The push button switches are important functioning switches used in the "by the book" startup and shutdown procedures for a 206 helicopter.

This panel also has working rotational knobs for the Reality XP altimeter, attitude indicator, and directional gyro instruments. The rotary switches are from GoFlight and are wired to a GoFlight remote RP48 USB interface. A red safety latched toggle switch is used to control the main fuel valve

The connecting wires to the switches are strands of ribbon cable that have been hot glued to the back of the board to keep them in place. The switches are recessed and "flush" with the surface on the back of the board. The monitor's LCD screen was stripped of all plastic parts, (stand, back, and front bezel) so that the panel overlay would fit as close as possible. Essentially the depth of the wire is the space between the panel and the monitor, about 1/16 of an inch. Although not shown in this photo, 1/16" thick self adhesive foam pads were placed on the back of the overlay panel near the push buttons in order to provide more cushioning and protect the LCD screen.

The JetRanger type annunciator warning panel has 20 caution lights and a momentary push button switch to test the lights.

More information on the construction of the annunciator panel can be found here.

7" LCD GPS screen, GPS Switch Panel (GoFlight RP48), GoFlight Push Buttons (GF-P8), GoFlight Radios (GF-166)

This GPS screen is actually a portable 7" DVD player that has a "video in" jack feature. The GPS LCD screen is connected to a second video adapter in the sims computer and displays the FSX GPS gauge panel. The GPS functions are controlled with the GoFlight RP48 push buttons and rotary switches that are just below the screen.

Center console mounted switches for hydraulics, anti-icing, and caution light brightness control.

All of the switches needed for startup and flight of the 206 helicopter are operational and function like the real thing. In this case, the circuit breakers will not actually trip (as there is not enough current in the line), but they do act as standard "on-off" switches. For example, the overhead hydraulic circuit breaker is "in line" with the main hydraulic switch, so pulling this breaker gives the same results as flipping the hydraulic switch to the "off" position. This is made possible in FSX by using the Dodosim 206 FSX helicopter software, and FSUIPC4.

This Plasma-Lite V2 and Ace-4X expansion card handles all of the overhead switch and circuit breaker inputs.

The two David Clark H10-13H helicopter headsets are linked to a Flight Sound X-H helicopter USB sound adapter.

This is the partly completed experimental motion base that now resides under the cockpit.

With the motion platform installed the cockpit is now sitting at about the height of the "high skid" equipped JetRanger.

More details and pictures on the building of the motion control base can be found here.

The recycled computer power supply in the above photo (upper left) runs two 12 volt vibrating motors. Imitated vibration really adds to the "realism factor". One small electric motor (mounted to, and under the seat) starts when fuel is introduced and ignited, this is triggered by the throttle twist grip detent position and a microswitch in the collective switch head. Another slightly larger vibrating motor on the cockpit roof starts when you raise the collective to induce pitch, and this one is triggered by another microswitch at the base of the collective. You can just see the white push button in the center of the left hole, in the front of the seat base, which controls that power supply. There are times when I'm testing new software or controls, when I do not need or want the vibration, hence the override switch.

The next three photos show the "new" doors that have been fitted. The doors are used when operating the simulator with a projector and screen. Blocking out the side windows helps keep the operator focussed forward on the screen, which helps with the total immersion of operating and "flying" the aircraft. The doors are easy to put on and take off by removing the two hinge pins.

The real Bell 206 right side door (shown on the right in the two photos) was salvaged from another wrecked 206. The door was damaged and had to be repaired and painted to match the cockpit. A 1/8" white Masonite panel was used to replace the broken window.

Due to the curves involved, the left side door was fabricated with a piece of 1/8" hard Masonite, bent and glued to oak hardwood strips. A homemade sliding door latch and fabricated Bell type hinges keeps the door in place.

All of my original homemade controls (cyclic, pedals, and collective) were mounted at a desk until the cockpit came along. Since I've acquired the JetRanger cockpit, the simulator now has all the functioning real buttons and switches needed for a realistic 206 turbine engine start and warm-up, complete with realistic associated sounds, accurate flight characteristics, and shutdown procedures. The simulator can now be used effectively for 206 turbine transition training and IFR flight training as well as general familiarization with helicopter flight and procedures. For the most part this has been made possible by the advanced 206 helicopter simulator software from Dodosim Flight Simulation. (www.dodosim.com)