Cockpitbuilders.com

After reading a few posts here this morning I nearly started hauling airplane parts out of the garage and up to the spare room on the seconf floor of my new house.

I stopped myself though when I thought, "how am I going to build the platform let alone the shell with 727 parts everywhere and in my way?" That put a stop to that horse.

Instead, I grabbed a roll of blue painter's tape and a 25' tape measure and started laying out how big this thing is going to be and how much room I'll have around the perimeter of the sim, and room for projector screens.

Room is good on the FO side. I can get by the side wall fore and aft with plenty of room in front for maintenance and the visual system. There's about 32" aft of the proposed sim for entry and exit. Ceilings are 9' so there are no worries there.

When I mentioned in another thread that there's no chimney to worry about for this build, I was wrong. Damn, I just don't seem to be able to get away from this chimney problem. In this case it's not so bad though. It will just prevent me from walking forward on the captain's side on the outside of the sim. I can still get to everying, but I will have to walk back around the sim to get to something on the other side of the chimney. There's going to be about 8" of clearance. Fortunately it won't be in the way of any visual system I might use.

There is a floor vent in a very inconvenient location that I will have to work around or my butt will be on fire. I certainly don't want to vent the HVAC into the cockpit. It would be just about right behind the captain's seat. I'm going to end up turning that vent 90° and have it vent aft of the cockpit below the deck.

I think this room will do nicely. Now to make up a bill of materials and order lumber.

Mike, I feel like a little kid.  I can;t wait to watch this progress.  with your furniture refinishing experience, I bet this is going to be the ultimate.