X wing Flight Simulator

TinyTim

Active Member
Hello All!

I'm working out the details for my most ambitious build yet, A life-size X Wing Cockpit! The ultimate plan is to motorize it and make it a full scale sim, but for the time being this will just be a fancy chair. I'm looking for some extra details, particularly what lies behind certain panels. I have tabbed several other of the Life Size Build threads for additional research and yes, I have yet to go through them entirely, many at all. Google has produced several amazing images, and I have a large 3D model that looks to be nearly perfect. (It's this one if anyone's wondering). This will be mainly a show and tell thread, but essentially this is all I'm intending to build right now:

Please excuse the crudity of this sketch I didn't have time to draw it to scale or detail it.
P_20180417_133759-s.jpg

I'm working on making some structural connections underneath some of the detail paneling, to allow for rotation and whatnot. This is very early planning, but I'd like to have the main structure, seat and outer skin done by Christmas. The frame will most likely be steel, because I have the tooling required for that. the skin will be fiberglass, but I'm still not sure if I want to have blacked out or clear windows. I want the end result for the fore and aft cutoffs to look like the proper innards of an X wing, like the rest of the ship was destroyed and this was all that was salvageable. Maybe ill build the rest down the road... who knows?

Any suggestions or pros/cons for the windows? The only other really major think is I'm not sure how to get the hatch to open smoothly... I'm thinking some hidden lift gates off of a hatchback or SUV or something. Any Tips? I promise I'll be combing through the rest of the threads this week.

UPDATE: I can promise you that I will not be updating this on a daily basis... Much as I'd like to...

Based on the Revell model and published dimensions of 41 feet in length. This is almost the length of my house... But the entire cockpit should be in the ballpark of 10 feet in length:

Dimensioning_Revell-Kit.JPG

And somewhere around four feet wide. Admittedly I haven't measured it yet.
 
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I guess it's update time? This thing is a proper project. I don't have a whole lot to show, mostly a continually-growing shopping list and some really atrociously rough cad models, but with the addition of Mr. Oldman's beautiful schematics, I've been able to start shopping around for acrylic prices, and steel sub-structure, but I think I’m going to build a wood rendering of my frame idea to literally "see" if it's feasible. Plus, this will really solidify if the whole setup is OK to do or not. It's kinda funny though, 10.5' doesn't seem all that long, but it's pretty daunting...

Profile.JPG

Oh! another hiccup I discovered a few hours ago, is that the Torpedo tubes start (red) about a foot backwards from the proposed forward cutoff point (blue). Also, the torpedo tubes are a pretty odd dimension, 5 5/8" Internal Diameter. My idea at this point is to use some 6" schedule 40 PVC tubing to get "kinda close" but it's still 3/8" off...

All in all, this is a big project. I still need to attempt to 3D model the flight seat, but until that time I can sit on some books. I've recruited my brother foe additional help, specifically with the computers (In Universe and IRL) and as a tax he's told me I need to make him one of the laser cannons to hang in his garage, which isn’t big enough to accommodate one of them, so that will be an interesting challenge... I'll have to peruse the Studio Scale Model threads to see what half of this stuff was originally...

Anyways, Thanks for reading, I’ll post some actual models when I’m convinced my work looks "good enough" to show off...
 
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