Hello everyone. Great site, lots of helpful info. I'm an aircraft mechanic for a Very large Airline. Im currently working on the B757-200 (ETOPS crew). Been working the aircraft daily for about 7.5 years. Its a Great bird. Im getting the itch to build a B757 cockpit. I would like to start off with building my own panels. Firstly a MCP. then the radios, transponder etc... Who knows how far Ill take it. Anyway, ive been trying to gather all the info I can for the MCP. Has anyone built thier own MCP? any guidance in the right direction would be great.
Thanks Gerry
Hey Gerry
Welcome to the site :). excellent choice of bird i must say.
As for build your own MCP there are many ways on how to go about it, get a panel, load of encoders, switches and led displays and interface them to an opencockpits board connect to FS and off you go, sounds simple, trust me its not.
there are some options out there for ready made plug and fly devices, FDS do the 747-400 MCP thats actually the same as you find on the 757/767, CP Flight also do an MCP but that geared specificaly towards the 747-400 as it has the EICAS panel built onto it and it cant be removed. If your lucky you may be able to get your hands on an old Aerosoft 747 MCP but they are rare as rocking horse shit, even i am after one.
For my build you will laugh, i have a very old CP flight MCP for a 737, runs on serial, ive just removed the guts out of that and put it into a 757 MCP enclosure, will give you 95% of the functions u will need for every day flying on the 757, personally just to get me flying i am happy with that, and the bonus of using a 737 MCP is that the left and right CRS displays are also included :)
There is a lot out there for the 767/767, the main one being the specific builders group at http://games.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/b767homecockpitbuilders/ (http://games.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/b767homecockpitbuilders/)
For interfacing with OC cards and Lekseecon Edoardo site http://www.b767sim.blogspot.com/ (http://www.b767sim.blogspot.com/)
Nico Kaans site for lekseecon ( the go between from levelD767 within fs to what ever hardware you want to use) http://www.nicokaan.nl/ (http://www.nicokaan.nl/)
Per Erik's site, he built an MCP from nothing http://www.hoddo.net/ (http://www.hoddo.net/)
Should get you started :)
Phil
Hey Phil,
Thanks for the nice Welcome. Ive been toying with the MCP which way to go. I actually wouldnt mind building my own. Ive done some reading and I understand its not an easy task by any means and that there is alot more than just wiring switches and turning it on. Id have to learn how to interface, I have checked out some of the sites from your links. Great info. I'm not in a rush to get the MCP finished, as I have alot to learn. But I would like to take on the challenge. I will be doing alot of research and im looking at getting my hands on a copy of Mikes books.
Again , thank you.
Gerry