F/A-18 Cockpit Plans

[Roller25]

Does anyone have F/A-18 simpit cnc plans? Or even just MK14 seat plans? Or a CAD file of either/both?

 

Would be very appreciative for anything.

[Wizard 1]

Look here:

 

https://www.dogfightboss.com/f-a-18-super-hornet

[Roller25]

Look here:

 

https://www.dogfightboss.com/f-a-18-super-hornet

 

Yeah spoke to those guys. Their pdf plans are the "simplified" version. Was hoping to find one that was a little more detailed with a canopy bow and MIP. Or even a simple CAD version that I could modify myself.

[Buckeye]

Check out Hornetpits.org

 

Once you’re registered and approved you’ll be able to view their forums, there are many solid resources there.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Roller25]

Check out Hornetpits.org

 

Once you’re registered and approved you’ll be able to view their forums, there are many solid resources there.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The only one I could find there was from K-Lu which is a Sketchup file. I might have a play with that, but I'm not too familiar with Sketchup. More of Fusion360 user.

 

I thought for sure with the Hornet coming out there would be a heap of guys building Hornet pits.

[Mr_Burns]

There probably are but not everyone is making exactly what you are after?

 

 

I printed the Hornet Natops manual at 400% and its as accurate as I need as I am not making a replica.

 

 

K-Lu Sketchup file is good depending on what you want, I use the tape measure in sketchup to confirm I am ballpark for measurements. You just need to keep "ungrouping" until you get the part you want.

 

 

IIRC he doesnt claim to be accurate although one of the guys on Hornetpits has posted pictures from inside a Swiss F/A-18 with some tape measures.

[Roller25]

There probably are but not everyone is making exactly what you are after?

 

 

I printed the Hornet Natops manual at 400% and its as accurate as I need as I am not making a replica.

 

 

K-Lu Sketchup file is good depending on what you want, I use the tape measure in sketchup to confirm I am ballpark for measurements. You just need to keep "ungrouping" until you get the part you want.

 

 

IIRC he doesnt claim to be accurate although one of the guys on Hornetpits has posted pictures from inside a Swiss F/A-18 with some tape measures.

 

I'm using VR, so it doesn't need to be super accurate. Essentially, with the headset on, I want to feel as though I am sitting in a Hornet.

[Roller25]

PM sent

[Flim]

I'm working on a set of plans similar to my A-10 pit... it will takes some time, but it will be functional.

[Wize1980]

I'm working on a set of plans similar to my A-10 pit... it will takes some time, but it will be functional.

 

[streakeagle]

I bought the dogfightboss plans. While they are interesting and I may adapt them to my needs, I find they are less than perfect in quality. I imported the DXF files into sketchup to build the project in 3d and experiment with adapting them to my needs. I found the cutting patterns to be a little sloppy. The notches for fitting pieces of honeycomb board together are roughly 10mm wide, but it is hard to say because they are drawn so sloppy. I don't know if some of the corners for the slots were rounded to make it easier for cnc to make the cuts, but some slots are nice and square (i.e. the sides are exactly parallel and the bottom is perpendicular while other slots have a sloppy trapezoidal shape. This may be okay with the material being used, but I intend to use wood rather than cardboard except possibly on the outer skin. The tolerances for wood need to be a lot tighter and more consistent. Having to clean up the imported files is taking time that I don't have. If I knew where to get the materials and where to get them cut, I might try building the cardboard version per the plans first to solve any problems before altering the design to use wood. But I had a great experience designing a semi-replica F-4 Martin Baker seat and the left console on Sketchup and then building it in just a few evenings, so I had hoped to be able to do the same with these plans. I think I can do the same, it is just going to take a lot longer to clean up the imported DXF files before trying to mark up some wood and make the cuts by hand using a circular saw and jigsaw.

[Roller25]

Yeah I almost bought those plans - but thought, although not overly expensive, it was still a bit of a gamble for a set of plans. It seems the concerns I had are confirmed by your experience.

[streakeagle]

I suspect it would be better to buy it as a kit, but then the cost would be fairly high despite the relatively cheap materials due to shipping. What I really need is a very accurate 3d model of the real cockpit in Sketchup that I can simplify into my own design, but this was the closest I could come to that. I would really like a decent F-4E cockpit in Sketchup. I have already built my own version from rough measurements I took while sitting in museum cockpits and from another person's measurements used for his own home-made F-4 pit. I found trying to scale up a 1/32 scale cockpit too inaccurate, but since I want to move forward, I may settle for that approach.

[SageOT]

Strange I didn't have the same issue with the pit files from dogfightboss. I thought they were pretty well done for the price.

 

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[Don_Walker]

I bought the dogfightboss plans. While they are interesting and I may adapt them to my needs, I find they are less than perfect in quality. I imported the DXF files into sketchup to build the project in 3d and experiment with adapting them to my needs. I found the cutting patterns to be a little sloppy. The notches for fitting pieces of honeycomb board together are roughly 10mm wide, but it is hard to say because they are drawn so sloppy. I don't know if some of the corners for the slots were rounded to make it easier for cnc to make the cuts, but some slots are nice and square (i.e. the sides are exactly parallel and the bottom is perpendicular while other slots have a sloppy trapezoidal shape. This may be okay with the material being used, but I intend to use wood rather than cardboard except possibly on the outer skin. The tolerances for wood need to be a lot tighter and more consistent. Having to clean up the imported files is taking time that I don't have. If I knew where to get the materials and where to get them cut, I might try building the cardboard version per the plans first to solve any problems before altering the design to use wood. But I had a great experience designing a semi-replica F-4 Martin Baker seat and the left console on Sketchup and then building it in just a few evenings, so I had hoped to be able to do the same with these plans. I think I can do the same, it is just going to take a lot longer to clean up the imported DXF files before trying to mark up some wood and make the cuts by hand using a circular saw and jigsaw.

I am sorry but You misunderstood the purpose of the ''plans'' , our digital downloads wasn't plans, it was always a kit which should be cutted from the materials what we recommend. If we want to publish plans, we would do it in different way. Right now its a kit what suppose to be cutted from cardboard and coreflute board. There are tested tolerances for these materials and it works.

Anyway, we stopped to offer digital downloads and from now we have only physical products.

[streakeagle]

I understood quite well what the plans were intended to be used for. But they very much are plans and the only change I want to make is to use wood rather than cardboard. I was just surprised that plans developed in a digital medium to be used by a digitally controlled cnc milling machine would be so sloppy. From what I saw, some of the components will have to compress a bit to fit in the slots or some will have a little bit of extra play, and some of the slots might even need to be cleaned up by hand after being cut exactly per the DXF files.

 

I like to overbuild even when I use sturdy materials. Cardboard was never going to be good enough for me. But your design is really cool and will readily work with wood. With wood, it would be very strong, or I can remove some extra support frames only needed for cardboard to make it lighter. The plans can work very well, but as I said before, they need some work to be better patterns for sturdier materials.

 

I saw your new kits and the "professional" kit is very nice. I also noticed that the DXF plans were no longer for sale. Shipping large/heavy items from Europe to North America is not very cost effective for me. I much prefer having a copy of the plans so I can choose locally available materials I like and make other small changes to suit my needs. If I end up actually the using dxf plans, it would be to cut out regular cardboard sheets which I could then use as templates for wood parts that I would cut out by hand. But it will take more work than I counted on to clean them up for wood, so they will probably go unused.

 

My intent would be to build four stand alone modules on wheels: left console, right console, front panel, and seat/floor. I already have a version of this in use providing a left console and floor/seat panel for a quasi-scale F-4 home cockpit. The end results are sturdy, but easily moved around for cleaning/maintenance, and small enough/light enough to be carried up and down stairs and transported in the backseat of a midsize car with little or no disassembly.

[LynxDK]

For those who might be interested, i will offer Cockpit plans for the F/A-18C for free like those im working on for the A-10C.

 

 

That means that the plans will be freely available to download from my website, but i also offer to cut the pieces. It will be designed to be build of 6mm MDF like all my other plans.

 

 

Like i have released the MIP for both the A-10C and the Huey for free, also the F-18 will be released, and i can show you a teaser for the MIP here:

 

 

 

 

The Plans will support all the panels and parts from me, and i will also release the outline dimensions on all the panels for the Cockpit on my web.

 

 

 

I will soon start a thread showing Prototypes of the Parts you see in the Digital drawing showed above, but to start with, heres one.

 

 

[MacFevre]

That looks incredible! Almost makes me wish I was building an F-18 cockpit!

[Buckeye]

Looks incredible, Lynx. I look forward to following along with your progress on this.

 

 

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[*Rage*]

Thats UFC looks incredible. Any more details on it?

[Hansolo]

+1 that F-18 UFC looks amazing :thumbup:

 

Did you scrub the A-10C UFC BTW?

 

Cheers

Solo

[LynxDK]

Thanks.

 

 

The UFC as it is there is only a "dummy" Prototype.

 

 

Which means it looks right, but have no functions, all the switches and rotaries are mounted with a screw from the back. Neither does it support Backlight.

 

 

So Backlight and switch functions is to be developed before i release it.

Also the casings are 3D printed, and in the picture they are grinded and painted nice to hide the Print Layers.

I wont be offering them with the finished looks you see there right away, but will be selling the casings directly from the printer. Intime however we might offer them nice and painted as you see here, but to keep prices down, as this panel is not in the cheap end with all that details, we leave the grinding and painting of the 3D casing to the buyer.

 

 

Also its made ready to be back projected, which means that the small screen will run from a projector, which also can show all 3 DDI's and the instruments... that will also lower the Pit price alot.. we hope that you only need one projector to the entire MIP, like we plan for the A-10C.

 

 

The A-10C UFC is not scrapped, but at the time we werent happy enough with the quality we where able to obtain with the machinery we had, but things have changed, and we are trying to make the switches and backlight in a whole different way than most others do. Problem again here is time.

The f-18 panels you will see from me, is part of a specific order i got, which meant i had to make all the f-18 Panels.

[streakeagle]

For those who might be interested, i will offer Cockpit plans for the F/A-18C for free like those im working on for the A-10C.

 

 

That means that the plans will be freely available to download from my website, but i also offer to cut the pieces. It will be designed to be build of 6mm MDF like all my other plans.

 

 

Like i have released the MIP for both the A-10C and the Huey for free, also the F-18 will be released, and i can show you a teaser for the MIP here:

 

 

The Plans will support all the panels and parts from me, and i will also release the outline dimensions on all the panels for the Cockpit on my web.

 

 

 

I will soon start a thread showing Prototypes of the Parts you see in the Digital drawing showed above, but to start with, heres one.

 

This is really what I want/need. My problem is that I only have room for one or two cockpits and I am having a hard time committing to which ones I want to model. I favor the F-4 Phantom, but I only have it in P3D and SF2 right now. A full-blown pit won't be useful until the DCS F-4 becomes available, which may be a few years down the road. The F/A-18, F-5, and F-86 are all candidates for a dedicated cockpit. If I can come up with an easy way to swap out front panels and side consoles, I would like to be able to plug in whichever aircraft I want to fly for that day and/or week. I imagine a rack with all the panels and consoles stored in slots or on hooks with usb ports ready to plug into the base cockpit modules.

[Bullant]

For those who might be interested, i will offer Cockpit plans for the F/A-18C for free like those im working on for the A-10C.

 

I am more than just a little excited :)

[deaconjb]

I'm working on a set of plans similar to my A-10 pit... it will takes some time, but it will be functional.

 

I’d like to see theses when you’re done