L-1011 Trainer Installation: NAV and COM Radio Head Integration

L-1011 Trainer NAV and COM Radio Integration

Today we finished the VHF NAV and VHF COM Radio head integration with X-Plane. Ben Klang wrote the code for the VHF NAV radios. The VHF NAV radios use a 2 of 5 encoding method and we are reading them with National Instruments DIO cards. Ben wrote a program on a small Linux box that continuously reads the values and sends them on to X-Plane via a UDP DataRef.

We also completed the VHF COM Radio integration. Here, the radios use the ARINC 429 Labels 030 with different SDI numbers to differentiate the various COM channels. For now, we integrated COM1 and COM2 to directly interface with X-Plane. Just as with the VHF NAV tuning information, the VHF COM frequencies are passed to X-Plane via the network as UDP packets.

The video below shows the operation of the VHF COM and VHF NAV radios in our L-1011 cockpit.

Original Flight Hardware: Central Electronics Complex

So, the assembly of components above is somewhat my first approach to the instrument heads found on the L-1011 pedestal. These instruments would be located right after the throttle quadrant. What is not shown in the picture are the trim instruments that are also part of the center pedestal.



The image below shows the location for the Communications radios using the VHF band. They are identified as VHF1, VHF2 and VHF3. I added a 4096 Transponder to it and the head for the WX Radar. The WX Radar panel is actually a Boeing 747 WX Radar controller. I included two Navigation radios (labeled NAV1 and NAV2). In the bottom right hand corner I have a dual ADF radio head. There is an amplifier/radio selector for the pilot and the first officer.



The next two images show how the individual radio heads could be cabled into the selector panels for both the captain and the first officer.