F-14 Cockpit and instrument dimensions

[Chronocidal]

I'm slowly making progress planning out a replacement Tomcat console button box for the Super Taurus to mount in place of the stock Hornet panel, since I love the meaty feel of the metal construction.  Panel materials are almost all acquired, and I just need to fire up my printer to start making some of the new components.

The biggest headscratcher was how I was going to fit a flap handle on top of the Super Taurus box, since there's not much room on the outboard side.  That all got very simple once I realized the flaps aren't an axis, and I can make the whole thing with a sliding handle and four limit switches.  It's kind of a waste of switches, but I'd rather have more functional detents than less, in case I want them on another plane.

I don't have anything printed yet, but the model is looking close to where I can hopefully print a prototype this weekend.

Not sure there will be room for anything fancy like roller bearings for smooth motion, but we'll see how well it moves after I get the parts printed out.  The slider is in two halves, with a spring-loaded tooth to engage the detents on the left half of the box, and a small angle bracket sandwiched in the middle to mount the lever cap.

Wires will get routed out the left half of the box, and into the console box it will be mounted to.

Current plan is to cut the main panel from acrylic sheet, and build a box under it to mount using the same bolts that the Hornet panel does (and probably other supports to keep it in place).

Fortunately I can re-use most of the slider geometry for the wingsweep handle, once I get to it.  That's going to get more complicated, due to the handle extension, and I might need to make it a bit wider, but there's plenty of room for a full lever on that side, so I can link it to pot.

 

[RustBelt]

I would think a low profile Hall sensor would give you more room for the wing sweep handle. 

[Chronocidal]

17 hours ago, RustBelt said:

I would think a low profile Hall sensor would give you more room for the wing sweep handle. 

Quite possible, though I'm not sure what arrangement the lever will be in yet.  I'm just now designing the mount.  Fortunately, the Super Taurus has a few mostly decorative bolts on the upper surface, and I think if I replace them with longer bolts of the same size, I can bolt down the wingsweep lever housing to the top of the throttle, and let it hang down the side.  That mounting is pretty critical to my entire console design, because I need to make space for it on the inner sidewall.

Otherwise though, had some pretty good success printing out the flap lever, and it's pretty much ready for the switches and wiring to be installed.

A little awkward to move with one hand, and no audio in the clip, but the handle clicks nicely into each of the detents, and slides very smoothly just on the printed plastic, since I aligned all of the print layers.  I'm looking for ways to embed some bearings into the handle to roll along the tracks better, but there's very little room to spare.  Small roller bearings on the top and bottom of the right-hand guide might do the trick, if there's room.

Edit: I can't seem to remove this dead video embed, I think I clicked the embed button before the video uploaded, and it glitched out.

Edited May 23, 2023 by Chronocidal

[Smith]

Hello,

are the scan files of heatblur available some where? i would like to download them.

[Elo]

Hi @Smith, see this post

 

[Chronocidal]

Did anyone have some rough measurements of the wingsweep lever, both the handle itself, and the housing?  I saw someone making up a chart a while back, but never saw the end result.

The thing that's throwing me off is what arc the handle actually travels.  The top of the handle is tipped at an angle, but the lever doesn't even seem to be connected directly to the axis of rotation, as if it's offset.

Might not be that big a thing in the end, I'm just trying to decide what makes sense in the space I have alongside my throttle.

 

Edited May 31, 2023 by Chronocidal

[Elo]

@Chronocidal maybe these could help you

 

[Chronocidal]

On 6/2/2023 at 7:59 AM, Elo said:

@Chronocidal maybe these could help you

 

Unfortunately, not really. I read through the entirety of this thread looking for more info, but there aren't any measurements taken of the actual handle and its extension, or the location of the pivot point relative to the arc it travels.

I'm actually not terribly concerned with being accurate to the size and shape of the overall throttle assembly, because this isn't a replica.  I'm building an F-14 conversion panel for the WinWing Super Taurus F-18 throttle assembly, which is quite a bit longer than the F-14's, so the arcs and pivots will all be different.  I'm mostly concerned with building the wingsweep handle itself at the correct size, to make sure it's ergonomically functional.

I was originally hoping to make 3D prints of the entire thing like I did the flap handle assembly, but this one is looking more like the housing would be easier to make with plywood or acrylic sheet, and wooden blocks for spacers.

I still plan to print the handle itself, and the cover plate, since those are more complicated shapes.  The handle will have a detented extension built in with a button, and the cover plate will activate a switch when opened.  I'm still working on the geometry for how the handle will drive a potentiometer (or hall sensor), and where the cover plate's pivot needs to be located.

Edited June 4, 2023 by Chronocidal

[Jar72]

On 12/15/2021 at 8:57 PM, winghunter said:

I've made this panel in 10 minutes using only a black & white printer.

I simply scaled to 5.75" and printed the texturemaps from this F14 mod: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/de/files/3313661/
The photoshop file is here if you want to give it a go.

Then I glued this to 5mm foamboard. Then used a center punch to make small holes just big enough to screw in the switches.

It's surprisingly sturdy, I can toggle the switches without any wiggle room. Haven't even needed hotglue. And it's ultra lightweight, I guess I could build this whole cockpit under 10 pounds. Which makes me think I will stick with this for a while as I can easily diassemble and stow this some place.

I

 

 

 

Hi guys,

I have started to plan on building my own pit (plans review, analysis, material already available, best strategy for my needs and free time...). I am just so fed up with seating uncomfortably wrong in my office chair, re-centering my VR focus all the time, adjusting the HUD brithgness painfully slow... I have already done an "all you need" box with Arduino, for Gear, Hook, Master arm... But it's time for me to go the right way.

 

I want to do a 1st step focused on wooden structure (thank you Sir Mumbles) and functional buttons. That's why I found winghunter idea very appealing, to print the panels layout from the game, and adding the buttons at the right place.

 

Unfortunately, the link above is broken. Would you guys by any chance have a copy of his "photoshop printout panels" please?

Thanks a lot !!!

Jar

 

EDIT :

I found another post, I think I can work from this, as the layout is beautiful and precise. Thanks !

 

 

Edited June 19, 2023 by Jar72
Found an solution

[Elo]

Hey guys,

after many weeks of trials and tribulations, i have finally gotten the Panavia Tornado Altimeter i purchased on Ebay to work with DCS, and wanted to share it with you:

 

It looks similar enough to the one in the tomcat that i think this will fit perfectly into my pit.

Heres the code for anybody interested, feel free to share/edit

@AusMumbles a couple weeks back you mentioned sharing some revised plans for your cockpit frame, hows that coming along? (No pressure of course, its a privilege to even have tried and true plans)

Cheers guys,

Elo

 

 

 

Altimeter_AllInOne.ino

Edited June 29, 2023 by Elo

[Chronocidal]

One little update, I got a pile of knobs and things printed out, and decided to give a shot at printing whole panels on my printer.  Laser-cut acrylic is still going to be more accurate, and I might redo these later if I get the option, but for now I decided to run a couple of trials.

Results aren't too bad, but I don't know whether the back panels will survive drilling for mounting yet.  Just the nature of printing them, the filament tends to shred.  I can probably reprint the backplates with holes pre-cut, but I might need a new print bed surface before I do it, since it's getting difficult to keep big flat panels stuck down, and I'm not sure the biggest panels will work.

Edited July 4, 2023 by Chronocidal

[75th ORD EOD Cheesecake]

@Chronocidal  Sorry for the delay in posting these.  I was pinged on here in June to help you out with dimensions, but got tied up doing a UXO assessment for the day job which kept me out of the museum over the summer.  Here's some reference images for the emergency sweep handle dimensions.  I left my caliper in millimeters for ease of international reference.  For operation, the handle raises 1.5 inches when pulled to the emergency setting.  The steel button must be depressed to drop the handle back into the spider from the emergency settings.  Depressing it rotates the locking tab visible in one of the photos to clear the lip of the arm actuator sleeve.  After that it sometimes requires some searching back and forth to find the actual detent.  Our resident A model driver was telling me that in the early days, this would manifest as watching the wings "flap" in and out a handful of degrees on a tomcat that received it's "spread wings" signal, before the SOP became to pull the FC1 and FC2 breakers near the pilot's left knee and leave them pulled until on the catapult.  This meant you could search all day for the detent and the wings would never move until you were ready.  The heatblur cockpit model actually has these two breakers highlighted with red circular stickers for the pilot's reference.  Also of note is that the emergency sweep handle control is not nearly as precise as the CADC assisted manual control on the throttle, with manual being able to command in 1 degree increments, but emergency in 3 degree increments.  Let me know if you have any further measurement needs.

Also of note: The museum has given me free reign to rebuild the cockpit once I have the requisite instruments for it.  I've started grabbing what authentic ones I can find, so if any of y'all find tomcat parts in the greater internet, please let me know.  Obviously ill be fabricating some things that will be impossible to find, like the CRT's for the front and the PTID for the back.  We'll be setting up a social media page for the museum over the next couple months, and i will post the relevant links here when that goes online.

[kaltrop]

Thanks a lot 

[kaltrop]

Hello, Could you take the dimensions of the left and right throttles

thanks

[AusMumbles]

@Elo Sorry about the delay my man. The day job has keep me very busy for the last few months. 

I'll push a new edit to this post tonight but I'm slowly getting there with the plans etc. 

Edited August 27, 2023 by AusMumbles

[Yogi8]

I absolutely love this thread. I'm kicking around and working on the throttle quadrant and plan to make it available for everyone. I haven't quite figured out how to make the emergency wing sweep work correctly, but that's for another time. There are some things I like, some things I love, somethings I hate... but I'm open to any constructive criticism. I plan on tackling the base of the quadrant next. As an aside, I'm incredibly slow with Fusion360, so this is going to go slowly, but I want it to work right and print nicely. 

Honestly, this is mostly a labor of fun/love. I grew up watching the F14 being tested at the Calverton facility. Along with the e2 hawkeye, and the a6 intruder/prowler, the F14 would fly over the house I grew up in daily.. cars would line up on rte 25 along the back gate and almost everyday was an airshow... until they closed the facility in the early 90’s. Much love to the community that keeps the the memory of the Tomcat alive.

Again, I love this thread and I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!

[Proton_]

Hello,

so i'm planning to build the main Instrument Panel and the left an right vertical console of the Tomcat. I wanted to start with the Display Control Panel.

Can anyone give me the Dimensions and the angle of the HUD Control Panel? 

 

salute,

Proton 

[Elo]

hey @Proton_,

ive been basing most of my panel designs off this .png, it seems to be pretty accurate to the in-game Tomcat

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Utk7XcOaj622XG_r18X_Xw4PLhM4meY_/view?usp=sharing (over the 50mb limit so heres a google drive link)

its a bit scuffed, but one pixel in this image equals 0.01 inches (so the standard 5.75inch panels are 575p wide), so you can take measurements with MS paint

@AusMumbles glad to hear from you again! No worries with the plans, i can relate to how draining a day job can be.

While you were gone ive converted your Sketchup-Model into .dxf files for the parts, and have contracted a carpenter to CNC them out of MDF. I'll attach my plans for anyone who wants them, but i would of course also appreciate your plans for the pit to modify/adjust "my" parts.

12mm.dxf7mm.dxf

@Yogi8 this fantastic news, the throttle quadrant is the only part that i actually dont know how i should approach, so your work will be priceless

All in all, nice to see the thread come to life again!

 

Edited September 1, 2023 by Elo

[kaltrop]

Hi,

Here are some photos of the progress of the  throttle quadrant.

I would need a few additional dimensions to finalize.

Thank you all for this fabulous thread.

[Lt_Jaeger]

Very nice.

I wish I would just have a little bit of modeling skills, but a just a easy box brings me already to my limits in fusion 360 

[Proton_]

@EloThank you Sir!

[Yogi8]

Pretty dope to see different people working towards the throttle quadrant goal. This has me excited!

[Yogi8]

So, 

The pictures posted but not what I wrote, which is a bummer, but I'll try to summarize. 

Just wanted to do a quick update. I'm pretty much done with the interior mechanics of the throttle quadrant. 

I kicked around using potentiometers but decided on hall sensors for the flaps and throttles. This is mostly because of what I’ve read in this thread about the “potential” problems with the Throttletek. Hall sensors are a hell’va lot more expensive but if I’m putting this much effort into design and building, I might as well try to do it right. 

Micro switches have been modeled into the interior panels to act as engine cutoff switches. A 28BY J-48 stepper motor will power the emergency wing sweep handle so that it will move on it’s own in real life. I’ve kicked around using a servo motor instead. If anyone has any suggestions about stepper motor versus a servo motor, I’m open to them. As of right now I’ve modeled an Ardunio Uno to wire everything to.

The emergency wing-sweep cover has a micro switch modeled to register when the wings are in the oversweep position. I’m still working on the emergency wing sweep handle and trying to decide how I want it work. Do I want it to be a simple push/pull for the up and down motion or do I want to try and model something that looks right, and functions? Either way, there is a microswitch modeled at the base of the arm that will sense the up/down position of the handle. 

The friction handle works and you will be able to adjust the amount of force required to operate the throttles. According to the NATOPS, minimum friction is 2-3lbs of force and the friction handle can adjust that to require more force. 

There's still lots left to do. The emergency wing-sweep guard needs to be modeled along with screw holes, brass inserts, buttons, switches, stepper motor driver board, top hats! Bloody hell. Some of the spur gears fail, which will require some minor resizing as well. But all in all, I'm pretty happy with how far this thing has come along.

One important thing to note is... I’ve never programmed an Arduino. 

Progress is going to stall a bit as I’ll be out of town for about a week but if you guys have any questions or suggestions please let me know! 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Yogi8

[Yogi8]

A threaded rod runs through the center of the throttle quadrant. The flaps, throttles and EWS have 608 2RS skateboard bearings to help with smooth operation. 

Edited September 14, 2023 by Yogi8

[AH_Solid_Snake]

That's a pretty amazing upgrade on the ThrottleTek (I'm a previous user). Are you going to open source any of the files to allow people to test print the parts and help with feedback?