727 Builder Intro

[skyline223]

Hello to all!

My name is Will. I'm in Memphis, TN. I've been the proud owner of a 727 sim project since I was 16 years old, and I'm currently 24, so it's been a long time labor of love. My sim started life as a 727-100 CPT. When I acquired it, I took her home (my parent's house at the time) and got the pit functioning using virtual gauges, a three projector visual system, and hardware that was included with the CPT. I flew it that way about four years until a local flight school began using it for Crew Resource Management training. Then it moved out of my house and down to the flight school. It stayed there for a couple years until the flight school upgraded to a beautiful FDS A320 trainer.

The 727 was back in my hands, but I had nowhere to go with it at that point. So it went in storage for two years until my gracious wife allowed me to bring it to our home. Over the course of time when I had the sim in storage, I became the proud owner of a real 727 overhead, full MIP, and many real parts to the F/E station. It wasn't until I recently joined this forum that I realized these parts once belonged to XOrionFE (Scott). I thought that was very cool when I realized today that they have come full circle to another cockpitbuilders.com member.

Now that I enter "phase two" of my 727 project I will be working to interface the real world parts and rebuild the sim better than ever. I'll be starting a separate build thread (I have a LOT of questions), but wanted to give a proper intro before I dive in. Thanks!

Will
www.727simulator.com

727 CPT as she was in her former life



First stage of completion with 85% functionality (Circa 2010)


New (to me) MIP and overhead

[navymustang]

What a bold effort to undertake. And having a spouse that understands is half the battle 

[kurt-olsson]

Cool!

I can recommend the X-Plane and Teensy Microcontroller route. Make sure to post lot of pictures.

[Nat Crea]

G'Day Will!

If anyone can do it you can
Still working for Ken?

For those that don't know, Will is a private pilot, sim tech, guitar GURU and all round top guy.

Cheers,

Nat

[kenrosefire]

I can second the X-Plane and Teensy/Arduino route. It has become so easy to accomplish what you want as both of these have ways of integrating with X-Plane for free! Good luck on your build! I'm looking forward to seeing it!

[skyline223]

X-Plane / FlyJSim / Arduino route certainly seems to be a winner. My old configuration was FSX / Dreamfleet / Bodnar & FDS cards. With the Dreamfleet, model functionality was somewhat limited as far as systems went. I'm really excited to see what the XPlane route has to offer.

If anyone can do it you can
Still working for Ken?

Thanks for the kind words, Nat! Hope all is well my friend! I go down to check in on the A320 from time to time to be sure everything is working right. As of late, it has been operating smooth as silk, so not much for me to do! I recently took a job at an on-demand charter in town flying Lear 31s. I'm having a blast!