L-1011 Trainer Installation: Center Console Flood Light

L-1011 Trainer - Center Console Flood Flight

A lot of the work over the last few days has gone into building cable harnesses for the main instrument panel and the individual instrument runs from the breaker panels. So, all in all not so much to show, however, yesterday we did install two things into the trainer: a) we installed the Aural Warning system and connected it to the test panel on the Flight Station and b) re-lamped and powered up the center console flood light that is located on the Pilot's Overhead panel. The image below shows the coverage area of the center console flood light. The food light brightness in controlled with the potentiometer located right on the panel.

L-1011 Trainer: Center Console Flood Light

Here is the pinout and schematic for the Center Console Flood Light Panel:

L-1011 Center Console Flood Light - Pinout

L-1011 CPT Installation - Flight Station Flood Light

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

Today we installed the flight station flood light into the Lockheed L-1011 trainer at the National Museum of Commercial Aviation. The trainer originally did not have this flood light, therefore, we retrofitted the trainer with a flood light fixture removed from an old TWA L-1011. The image above shows the flood light fixture after Jim mounted it to the the correct location on the aft overhead panel. Below you can see the flood light fixture outlined in red.

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

L-1011 Flood Light Fixture

Here is what the flood light fixture looks like power off and powered on. The original fixture used fluorescent tubes that output quite a lot of heat. We replaced them with LEDs that are similar in color temperature and intensity.

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

The fixtures outputs a pretty nice and even light in the cockpit. The flood light is powered by the Ground Service Bus as would normally not be used while in flight.

L-1011 Trainer - Flight Station Flood Light Installation

L-1011 Main  Instrument Panel Flood Lighting

Each of the flight station flood light components has a discrete circuit breaker. In the L-1011 trainer all of the circuit breakers are real and can be used for the sim. The images below show the location of the Interior Lights circuit breakers on the CB3 panel (this is the after circuit breaker panel located to the right of the flight engineer's station).

L-1011 Trainer - Flood Light Circuit Breakers

L-1011 Trainer - Flood Light Circuit Breakers

L-1011 Trainer - Flood Light Circuit Breakers

The circuit breaker above, which is breaker 3J5 and labeled as "CAPT & F/O FLOOD", controls all three flood light fixtures under the main instrument panel glare shield. The flood lighting is powered by the ESSENTIAL DC bus. Since The LED lighting used in the simulator uses 12VDC as compared to the 24VDC that we will use for the rest of the system I am using a DC-DC converter between the 24VDC Essential DC bus and the 12V Flood Lighting.

L-1011 Trainer - Main Instrument Panel Glare Shield Flood Light

L-1011 - CPT Installation at the Museum - Captain's Flood Light

L-1011 Captain's Flood Light - LED Retrofit

Next in the Flood Light retrofit of the L-1011 Trainer at the National Museum of Commercial Aviation in Atlanta is the Captains Main Instrument Panel. Both the F/O's as well as the Captain's Instrument Panel flood lighting are controlled by a potentiometer located on the glare shield.

L-1011 Flood Light Dimmer Controller.

The image above shows the flood light dimmer potentiometer on the First Officer's side of the glare shield. The potentiometer controls a 12VDC PWM dimmer that directly drives the LED's for the respective flight station. The procedure trainer did not have any of the light controls previously connected to the potentiometer, however, the actually potentiometer was originally installed. The image below shows the retrofit of the potentiometer with cable connections to the PWM dimmer. 

L-1011 Flood Light Potentiometer for Dimmer

The LED strips are mounted into the original light fixtures under the glare shield with double-stick adhesive tape. The following to images show the inside of the light fixture with two strips visible and another two obstructed by louvers the protect the flood lights from spilling into the cockpit.

L-1011 Flood Light LED Retrofit - Low Intensity

L-1011 Flood Light LED Retrofit - Medium Intensity 

Mounting the LEDs actually took quite some time because we wanted to make sure that they really matched the look of the original fluorescent tubes. 

L-1011 Captain's Flood Light - LED Retrofit

Here is a short video of the PWM dimmers in action. They are very inexpensive devices but work really well with the LED strips. 

And finally a few images of the finished Capatin's and First Officer's under panel flood lighting.

L-1011 Captain's Flood Light - LED Retrofit

L-1011 Captain's Flood Light - LED Retrofit 

L-1011 - CPT Installation at the Museum - First Officer's Flood Light

L-1011 Trainer - F/O Flood Lighting

The L-1011 flood light build out continues here at the National Museum of Commercial Aviation in Atlanta. Today we continued with the LED installation into the first flood light fixture above the main instrument panel. Below you can see an image of the original flood light fixture (outlined in orange) retrofitted with the Cool White LEDs.

L-1011 Trainer - F/O Flood Lighting

The flood light is built in such a way that it only illuminates the First Officer's instrument panel and does not spill over to the Pilot's instrument panel and/or the center Instrument panel. The former two are controlled by the Pilot's flood light controller and will be installed later. The image below shows how well the light is contained to the F/O station only.

L-1011 Trainer - F/O Flood Lighting

At the normal viewing position from the first officer's seat there is also no direct light coming towards the F/O. This way the flood lights will not blind the F/O. This is done by a number of "L" shaped louvers in front of each row of lines.

L-1011 Trainer - F/O Flood Lighting

L-1011 Trainer - F/O Flood Lighting

L-1011 - CPT Installation at the Museum - SO Station Flood Light

L1011 Flight Engineer's Station Flood Light

Today we changed the first flood light fixture from fluorescent lighting to LED lighting. The flood light is above the Flight Engineer's station and is about 24" wide. The image above shows the Flight Engineer's station illuminated after the retrofit. 

For the retrofit I selected COOL WHITE LEDs because they are pretty close to the light that would have come from the fluorescent light bulbs. The LEDs below are standard SMD ultra bright LEDs mounted on an adhesive strip. 

Cool White LED Strip - 12VDC

The LED's can be cut just about every 2 inches (or every 3 LEDs). This makes them very flexibly for installations in the already existing flood light fixtures of the L-1011 simulator. Of course, the main advantage of using the LEDs are their durability and extremely low thermal output.

Cool White SMD LED Strip - 12VDC

The station flood light is controlled by a dimmer on the lower left hand side of the console. The image below shows the flood light at full intensity.

L-1011 Flight Engineer's Station - Flood Light Installation

The flood light fixture on top of the station has a metal strip that prevents light from spilling significantly further than the station itself.

 This contains the flood light and does not spill over to the pilot's stations or the main instrument panel.

L-1011 Flight Engineer's Station Upper Section - Flood Light 

L-1011 Flight Engineer's Station Lower Section - Flood Flight

The next flood lights to install will be above the Pilot's and First Officer's main instrument panels. The engine cluster flood light is combined with the Pilot's flood light and is controlled by the same dimmer. 

L-1011 Cockpit Trainer - Light Controls - Flood Lights

L-1011 Cockpit Procedure Trainer - Flood Light Integration

So the idea for all of the electrical systems that will be implemented on the trainer is to use an adequate circuit breaker in the location where it would be found in the cockpit. If you look a the design drawing above, I am planning on using breaker 2K10 in-front of the power switch and the PWM LED dimmer. The breaker location on the L-1011 is encoded as follows:

L1011 Circuit Breaker Position Encoding

The 2K10 breaker on the actual L-1011 secures the flight deck flood lights and it will do the same in our simulator.