Kennair

The glareshield of the 777 posed a particular problem in that the end wings are sculpted quite sleek with mutli layers at different angles.   After a bit of sketching I came up with a template for the 3 layers that would make up each wing.  I then transferred the sketch onto a 6mm piece of MDF to be used as a template.  This template was carefully sculpted then stuck onto a piece of 16mm MDF which would form one of the three layers.  This was then roughly cut around the outside with a jigsaw before taking to it with the router.  The 6mm template was stuck onto the 16mm MDF using thin double sided tape and used as a template to guide the router.  3 templates formed the 3 x 16mm layers to make up the total thickness and unique shape of the wings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The glareshield base is made out of 9mm MDF with pine supports to add rigidity.  Slots are routed along the MIP line for installation of strip LED lighting that will give downward lighting of the avionics panels.

An important function of the glareshield is the housing of the Mode Control Panel (MCP) and Electronic Flight Instrument System (EFIS) controllers.  I’ve decided to utilize 737NG versions of these units as they conform to my grey colour specification and from Opencockpits they are much cheaper than the FDS 777 version (as gorgeous as it may be).  Although not completely realistic to the building of a 777, they provide perfect functionality and very accurate control of all autopilot functions and with some tweaking of the SIOC/Sim-A config files it can be made to perform exactly like the 777 MCP.  As the OC version doesn’t come with backlighting I found a way to retrofit lighting and therefore solve the problem.  You can download the tutorial for this from the sidebar.

 

 

To see a video of the MCP in action go to my Videos page.