*Image from Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 from the PMDG 737 cockpit
As a kid I was inspired by airplanes, always asking my mom and dad how they worked. I loved to fly flight simulators on my Ipad all the time. As I grew older, I became less obsessed mobile flight simulators and became more obsessed with with RC planes. I had a dream to create an RC plane on my favorite real life plane, the Boeing 737. I found many RC model replicas available to purchase. I did not want to buy one, I wanted to build one. I started searching the internet for tutorials of how to create one. I quickly found a Youtube video with full instructions. I convinced my dad to let me start the project and he took me to the nearest arts and crafts store. I was trying to find some thin foam board so I could cut them out in many pieces. When I returned home I was so excited. I printed out pieces of paper and glued them onto the foam boards as a cutting guide. As I cut the pieces out, I saw the person creating this in the Youtube video had some special foam that could bend easily but was firm. I was very annoyed because when i tried to bend it slowly, it would snap. I was fed up of it and tried to find that foam sheet online. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it so I slowly abandoned the project.
One day, when I was playing a video game with one of my friends and he mentioned that he went to a place nearby with a realistic working flight simulator available to the public. I asked my dad and he found the place. I was so eager to try it. When I walked in to the place there were so many souvenirs relating to the 737. The flight instructor was kind and showed us the whole place. The flight instructor set up a takeoff and a landing. As I walked inside the cockpit I was amazed. When I got home that day I was searching for hours, trying to find images or videos of peoples own flight simulators. At first, I thought that the task would be impossible but quickly found many things to help me. I found an open source software to take inputs from an Arduino and convert them into inputs for my favorite flight simulator, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
I started doing lots of design work for the panels and experimenting with many circuits and eventually programming them to work.
Check out my Youtube channel to see some videos of some things working
I have used my local libraries makerspace laser cutter countless of times trying to make every panel. In the beginning of my project I was not at spray painting and designing. My panel building skills have increased significantly. Every single panel in my flight simulator is backlightable.
This is the fuel panel for the 737 overhead.
As I put a light behind, only the text that is engraved is allowing a small amount of light pass through allowing the text and some lines to be glowing which was one of my toughest tasks.
This is the overhead panel being backlit in a real life 737 airplane.
Another thing I have some progress on, is the FMC.
My version of the FMC.
On the back side, there are functioning tactile push buttons soldered to an Arduino protoshield board. Buttons programed with MobiFlight to work with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020.
Lots of progress left for soldering.
The real FMC from a real life 737
Blog still being created…
Emaad Majeed 