Atlanta Flight Simulator Builder - Meetup

I am organizing a simulator builder meet up at the Museum on April 3rd 2014. If you are in Atlanta, please join us for this event! We will be talking about the flight simulator project.

http://www.meetup.com/Atlanta-Flight-Simulator-Builder-Meetup/events/169352672/

See you there!

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Circuit Breaker Cabling

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Circuit Breakers

It's been a busy weekend for installing things into the simulator. However, there is not much to visually show because 90% of what I have been working on has to do with the hundreds of circuit breakers in the Lockheed L-1011 cockpit. As discussed a while ago, the L-1011 has 3 circuit panel groups.

• CB1 - is located right behind he pilot's overhead panel. 
• CB2 - is located above the flight engineer station 
• CB3 - is located to the right of the flight engineer station

Circuit Breaker Panel #1

From: TWA L-1011 Reference Manual

Circuit Breaker Panel #2

From: TWA L-1011 Reference Manual

Circuit Breaker Panel #3

From: TWA L-1011 Reference Manual

From: TWA L-1011 Reference Manual

Every instrument and every component in the L-1011 simulator runs through the correct circuit breaker on the respective panel. This we we are keeping with the desire of creating maximum realism and also with keeping the machine as safe to operate as possible.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Switch (Digital) Input Modules

Interbus Input Module Preparation

Cables, Cables and more Cables. The next few weeks are going to be filled with lots of postings on the digital cabling process of the L-1011 Trainer at the museum. The digital cabling connects all of the hundreds of trainer switches and lights to the computers. Today, I started building out the first of many digital input modules for the simulator. As described in a few earlier postings, I will be using a PLC system based on Interbus for the switch input and for the annunciator and switch light output on the L-1011 trainer.

interbus 8-bit Switch Input

Each of the digital input (DI) modules has 32 inputs that are arranged in 8 channels + 1 GND signal per group. The image above shows the 8 digital input lines that will be coming from switches. Each cable represents a bit and together each connector represents one Byte of information on the Interbus. 

L-1011 Trainer Installation: INU CDU Power-Up

L-1011 Trainer: INU Display Unit #1

The Litton INU display units are terminal units, often referred to as a Central Display Unit (CDU), that use a variant of the ARINC 429 standard to display information and read character input. A few months ago I started writing software for these INU CDU units. Today we installed three of these units in the L-1011 simulator. Typically L-1011 routes across the Atlantic would have had 3 of these units installed, and this is what we are simulating here.

Just with any of other ARINC 429 compatible instrument in the simulator, we are hoping to drive the Litton LTN-72RLs with the SIM429-11 interfaces.

L-1011 Trainer: INU Display Unit #3

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Ethernet and Interbus Cabling

L-1011 Trainer - Ethernet

Today was one of those "got a lot done .. but have little to show" kind of installation days. Today I installed Ethernet cabling into the simulator for both the instrumentation control as well as the simulation computer network. In the diagram below you can see the different cables installed into the simulator for both of the main data systems; Ethernet and Interbus:

L-1011 Trainer: Interbus and Ethernet Cabling

All cables are built to custom length, so it took a while to get them all laced in, cut and ends crimped on them. All Ethernet connections are now point to point tested from the simulator computers to the switches. The Interbus tests are to follow.

Simulation Platform - Network Tests

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Flight Station Bus Failure

L-1011 Trainer: Flight Station Bus Failure 

The FLT STA BUS FAIL lights are located on the Electrical System panel of the L-1011 S/O station. The lights illuminate amber when power is lost to the Flight Station Bus segment of the respective AC Load Bus.

The ELECTRICAL SYSTEM annunciator also illuminates on the Pilot's Annunciator Panel, however, this part has not yet been implemented. Below is a short video that demonstrates the Flight Station Bus failure and how it occurs independent form the Load Bus.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Battery and Standby DC Power Transfer

L-1011 Trainer - Battery ON Indicator

The Lockheed L-1011 power system has a very high degree of redundancy and fail over capabilities. Looking at the L-1011 schematics and talking to people who flew and worked on the L-1011 all say that it was really hard loosing power on the L-1011 due to the very well designed AC and DC power distribution systems on-board.

First thing we did today was to connect the Battery ON/OFF switch on the S/O Console as well as the associated annunciator. Here is an excerpt from Delta's L-1011 Pilot Reference Manual explaining the Battery switch as well as the associated annunciator:

from: Delta Airlines L-1011 Pilot's Reference Manual p.Electrical.20

L-1011 Trainer - Battery Flow Indicator

There are also a number of Standby and Essential Bus Fault indicators. While we did not complete the build out for this system fully, we have as of today implemented the DC power fail over systems. Below is a short video illustrating how the DC fail over systems work:

from Delta Airline L-1011 Pilot's Reference Manual page.Electrical-16

L-1011 Trainer - BUS 3 Failure and Essential AC Failure

L-1011 Trainer Installation: SFENA HSI Installation Preparation and ARINC 429 Bus Integration

For the ARINC 429 integration of the L-1011 trainer at the museum we will be using bus interfaces made by V1 Avionics. For the integration testing V1 Avionics used the museum's L-1011 HSIs and ADIs. The video below shows the instrument preparation and testing prior to installation into the L-1011 trainer. The L-1011 sim will use the following ARINC 429 capable instruments:

1. Attitude Director/Indicator (ADI)
2. Horizontal Situation Indicator (HSI)
3. Altimeter (ALT)
4. Vertical Speed Indicator (VSI)
5. Inertial Navigation Unit Display (INU CDU)
6. Datalink Display Unit (DU)
7. Performance Management Unit (PMU)
8. Communication Radio Faces (COM1/COM2/COM3)
9. ATC Transponder (ATC)

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Research

The last few days we have been doing a lot of research on the instrumentation cabling. The WDM, which are all the wiring diagrams and schematics for the L-1011, that Paul Talbott found for the museum a few months ago is on Microfiche. Microfiche is not a very common format any longer because most documentation today is supplied as PDF files on CD-ROMs, DVDs or are simply downloaded. So a big obstacle was having a Microfiche reader. Clay Young, from Aero Maintenance Group - Precision Electronics here in Atlanta, is letting the museum borrow a Microfiche reader for the next few weeks. This is going to help a lot because it allows us a quick deep dive into the cockpit instrumentation schematics. Thank you Clay!

The microfiche frames are organized by ATA and come in these neat books.

The drawings are the WDM drawings furnished by Lockheed to Delta Airlines in the 1980s and are perfect for our project.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Simulator Power Controls

L-1011 Trainer Installation - Power  Controls

The last few days we have been working on some of the less exciting, yet very important, components such as the simulator power control. You can see the primary power elements in the image above. The power controls from left to right are:

1. Main Power - this controls power to the flight simulator. The rocker switch is not only an ON-OFF switch but also a breaker that will drip at 15A. 
2. Computer/Visual - this switch controls the power ON-OFF state for the computers and video projects that are part of the L-1011 simulator. 
3. External Power - simulates external power being supplied to the aircraft. This external power would be either power supplied from a source at the gate or from a start cart. External power to the aircraft would be supplied via a ground connected cable. Switching this rocker switch to ON will illuminate the green AVAIL light on the Second Officer's console. 
4. Cooling System - activates the cooling system for the flight simulator. 

Below is an image of the entire control unit that houses the power controls and the computers.

L-1011 Trainer - Power Control and Computer Rack

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Simulation Computers

L-1011 Trainer - Simulation Computers

Installed the two Apple Mac Pro computers into the simulator rack today. These two systems form the base for the flight simulator and will be driving both the ARINC 429 as well as the InterBus I/O elements. There are two additional computers to come that will be mostly driving the visual components  (projectors) of the simulator.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Fuel Flow and Engine Fuel Used Installation

L-1011 Fuel Flow and Fuel Used Installation

The Engine Fuel Consumption indicator in the L-1011 cockpit consists of two instruments for each engine. The "Fuel Used" instrument located on the Second Officers lower console and the "Fuel Flow" (FF) instrument located on the main instrument panel. There is one of these instrument combinations for each engine.

The Fuel Used indicator receives signals from the fuel flow meter installed as part of the engine fuel flow system. The signals received from the sensors are then routed through the Fuel Used instrument to the Fuel Flow instrument shown on the left in the image above.
Below is a short video showing the Engine 1, 2 and 3 indicators installed into the L-1011 trainer.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Engine Oil Pressure - Power-Up and BITE

L-1011 Trainer: Engine Oil Pressure Power-Up and BITE

The engine oil pressure indicators on the Lockheed L-1011 are manufactured by Smiths Industries Ltd., and have a range of 0 to 100psi. The three indicators have a common test switch located on the panel between the No. 2 and No. 3 indicator position.

The Built In Test (BITE) dries the indicators to display roughly 22 to 24 psi.

Below is a short video showing the Engine Oil Pressure indicators and the BITE test. Unfortunately the Engine 2 Oil Pressure Indicator is damaged and we need to fix and/or replace it.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Main Instrument Cluster - EPR, %RPM N1 and FF Power-Up

L-1011 Trainer - Engine Cluster Power-Up

Switching over to the main instrument panel with the 115V 400Hz system power up for today. Two reasons; a) to run the necessary AC power returns from the CB3 Breaker Panel to the MIP and b) to test out the main instrument cluster and associated breakers. I know I have been talking about these %RPM and EPR instruments for a bit in the past but where is all this %RPM stuff actually located on the engine? Below is an image from the Delta L-1011 Pilot's Reference manual that shows the different compressor spools in the RB.211 engine.

RB.211 Engine from Delta L-1011 Pilot's Reference Manual

EPR, or Exhaust Pressure Ratio, is measured at the engine inlet and outlet and effectively displays the pressure ration between the two of them. This ratio presents a very good picture of the actual thrust output of the engine. 

L-1011 Trainer - EPR and %RPM N1

While the %RPM instruments (N1, N2 and N3) are all somewhat simple tachometer instruments, the EPR will need to be controlled differently. But more about that when we get to the actually connecting the instruments to the computers part of the project.

Below is a short video that shows the 400 cycle power-up and BITE (Built In Self Test) of the Lockheed L-1011 EPR and %RPM N1 instruments. You will notice that the EPR instrument show random values ... this is because they are not connected to a signal source quite yet and the instrument inputs are free floating.

Also powered up the Fuel Flow (FF) instruments, however, without the signal line between the Fuel Used gauges on the Flight Station there is not much to actually demonstrate on these instruments. You see that they have power going to them because they have cleared the flag (the red bar across the digital display on the bottom of the instrument).

L-1011 Trainer: Fuel Flow Power-Up

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Fuel Indication - Power-On Tests

L-1011 Trainer - Fuel Indication System

Getting the instrumentation online is quite exciting because suddenly the Lockheed L-1011 simulator/trainer gradually starts to come alive. Today I powered up the Fuel Indication system. It consists of 4 tank gauges and a fuel totalizer. The four fuel gauges feed signals to the Fuel Totalizer who then displays the total fuel load and allows for the Gross Weight of the aircraft to be entered prior to takeoff.

I have previously quite extensively blogged about the Fuel Level indicators, and you can find the more detailed blog posting on the Fuel Level indicator and the Fuel Totalizer by clicking on the link.

Below is a video that shows the #2L and the #1 fuel level gauges active and feeding data into the totalizer on the left hand side. For the test the indicators are instructed do point to roughly 1/2 tank full by supplying 5VDC to the instruments.

We are missing a Deutsch 15-S7 connector ... until then we are not able to power up the #3 tank gauge. If you have one ... let me know.

L-1011 Trainer Installation: %N2 Instrument Power-Up - 400Hz Power System Validation

The short video clip above shows another set of instruments now connected to the 400Hz power distribution system. By the way, we finally found a third %N2 RPM indicator that should arrive at the museum shortly so that we can finally replace the fake one we still have in place for Engine 3. What you see in the video is the instrument self test, or BITE (Built In Test). In the case of the %N2 RPM indicator the BITE will drive the instrument to 91% RPM N2.

By the way, one day I will learn how to operate instruments and hold the camera more steady at the same time!

Below is the description of the %N2 Tachometer taken from the Delta's Pilots Reference manual for the Lockheed L-1011.

L-1011 %N2 Tachometer - from Delta L-1011 Pilot's Reference

L-1011 Trainer Installation: Fuel Used Instrument Power-Up - 400Hz Power System

Here is a video of the first set of instruments powered from the 400Hz distribution system in the Lockheed L-1011 simulator at the National Museum of Commercial Aviation. You can find a lot more detail on the Fuel Used instruments as part of the Fuel Consumed Indicator blog posting. Providing these first three instruments with the 115V 400Hz power from the AC Bus 1 Ext, AC Bus 2 Ext and AC Bus 3 Ext subsystems checks the 400Hz system end to end:

Below is a more detailed description of the Fuel Flow system on the L-1011. 

L-1011 Engine Fuel Used System - From Delta Pilot's Reference

L-1011 Trainer Installation: 400Hz Power Distribution

L-1011 Trainer Installation: 400Hz Power Distribution

Today we put about 75% of the 400Hz power distribution in place. For the simulator we are really dealing with 3 different power sources: a) the 24V DC power system, b) 120V 60Hz AC power and c) 115V 400Hz AC power. Creating (a) and (b) was easy, however, as you saw in the previous posting, the 400Hz power required a special inverter that converts 60Hz power to 400Hz power. We are actually using the system we built for the 120V 60Hz power to drive the 400Hz power system. In other words, the power sense modules on the 60Hz side instruct bus segments on the 400Hz side to power on and off with respective relays.

To keep things a bit easier to identify we are using blue cables for the 400Hz system. The image below shows the current build state of the 400Hz system.

L-1011 Trainer - 400Hz Bus System Build out

By the way, the image shows some nifty new DIN rail mounts (the silver rack mounts) that Jim Blasco custom built for the project. They are really awesome and come at quite a cost saving to the project. Thank You Jim! Eventually all the cables will be dressed out once the system is fully built and it will certainly look a lot less like a rats nest :)

L-1011 Power Distribution System - Trainer Installation

L-1011 Trainer Installation: 400Hz Power in the Sim

115V AC 400Hz Power Inverter

Today we finally powered up the 115V AC 400Hz inverter for the Lockheed L-1011 trainer. Thanks to Richard Grigg and the engineers from Paul Wiley Electrical who worked late into the evening yesterday to establish the power feed from the main board to the sim room. The device will produce 5000VA on a single phase and will be able to meet all the needs for 400Hz avionics power that we have in the sim and then some more. There was an option to run it as 10KVA device, but we chose not to install it that way. Here are some more details on the unit:

High Power AC 400Hz Military APU 3 Three Phase Inverter 10 KVA output power. Manufactured by Transistor Devices, for transport (Lockheed C130) Auxiliary Power Unit. Input voltage is 208 three phase 50/60 Hz, Output is 200/115 (phase to phase/phase to neutral) VAC at 28 amps/leg, Model numbers are ESU127/A Power supply, and ECU-128/A for the static inverter modules. The inverter is built up from three modules. The thin one on the left is the redundant AC input module that does power factor correction. It then sends 350-450 VDC to the power supply inverter module on the right. Inside the right module a switch mode power supply takes the PFC output voltage and generates +/-200VDC and sends it off to the three phase inverter. The inverter then chops up the DC into three phase 115/200 Wye configuration (with neutral).

We had to move the inverter to the storage room in the museum because the machine is very noisy mainly because of two large air-movers. Below is a short video showing the machine in action.

We now have the 400Hz Power we need for the project in the sim. This marks the beginning of the instrumentation power-up in the trainer.

L-1011 Trainer: 400Hz Power on GEN1

L-1011 Trainer Installation: AFCS Mode and AFCS Warning Panel Power Up

L-1011 AFCS Mode Annunciator - FO Side

Had to hold off on working on more instrument lighting today due to the fact that we ran out of the type terminal block we use for the different light buses. No need to mix and match and hopefully over the next week or two we will have a fresh supply of terminal blocks.

So, switched to the AFCS Mode and AFCS Warning Annunciators today. I have actually quite extensively blogged about these two instruments; check out:

Pinout and Demo of the AFCS Warning Panel

and 

AFCS Mode Annunciator Breakdown

The four annunciators (two on the Captain's side and two on the FO side) are now powered up and can be self tested. The AFCS Mode annunciators have breakers on the CB1 panel and the AFCS Warning annunciators have their breakers on the CB2 panel.

L-1011 AFCS Warning Annunciator - Captain's Side

L-1011 Trainer: AFCS Mode and Warning Indicator Location

L-1011 AFCS Mode Annunciator - Captain's Side