The Spruce Goose

[-Chris-]

I've always wanted my own spaceship, been thinking about making one for quite a while now but it wasn't until I found the joyrider flight simulator that I thought I can actually do this. The genius of the joyrider is that as far as your computer goes it's just a joystick so it should just plug and play. My coding skills are non existent so that was great news. Here's a link to the joyrider http://www.acesim.com/ready.html

I thought about starting with a plastic pipe version, then I saw the aluminium one. I don't have the tools or knowledge to build something like that so I chose wood. Lots of head scratching later I had a rough plan of what to do, I also downloaded the plans from the joyrider site, some really good info on how to set it all up in the plans even though I had to redesign the rest to fit with wood instead of plastic or metal.

At first I wanted to make the outside look like a ship but it would have been much bigger than I had the space for. I decided to build a jumpgate simulator simulator. I will spray the whole thing battleship grey on the outside and make the inside look like a spaceship cockpit. So I ordered some castors and a bucket seat then got some timber.

The problem with wood is its flexible, the outer ring needs to support about 150-200 kg s and not flex at all. To keep the weight down and make the ring stiff I made it out of 1/2” plywood and some 2x1. I laminated 3 strips of ply and made I-beams. This turned out to be much better than I expected, very solid and still pretty light. I mitred the ends and biscuit jointed them and made some metal brackets that were bolted in place.



The castors arrived and I cut them up to make the bearings that the whole thing will move on a metal plate welded to the ends and they were good to go, still need to clean them up and paint them but they are working well.



For the inner cockpit I made 2 more I-beams this time with one sheet of ply and smaller. I have one ring on the bottom and one on the top extending as far as the back of where the screen will go. Then I made a box out of 1/2” plywood for the seat and covered the front sides with 1/8” ply. I made a box that attached to the front for the pedals out of 2x1 and 1/8” ply to make it back heavy to make up for the screen and pedals.

[-Chris-]

For the outer frame that the whole thing pivots on I made 2 more I-beams and laminated 2 bits of 1/2” ply for the ends, they are pretty rough at the moment and flex a bit I will remake them before I have finished.



The first time I sat in it and started swinging about was great I can't wait to get it all finished. I was thinking about going for 25-30 degrees of tilt but after messing about in it I think 15-20 would be better for my lunch. I debated for some time whether I should get 3 screens and a triple head to go or just one big screen. What swung it in the end was I already had 2 20” dells but their native res is 1600x1200 and I would have to scale it down to 1280x1024 on each screen. So I went for a 28” hanns-g with a 1920x1200 res and I have to say I am glad I did. First of all getting in would be a problem with 3 smaller screens as they would have to be much closer to you. Also the big screen is beautiful and it makes things much easier to hit and its easier to install.

That's as far as I have got, my next job is to make the shelf that the screen sits on and enclose it, then I can make the canopy and the control stick. After that it's time to cut up my joystick.

[selbie]

Oh wow. I'm speechless

[Mulligan]

That is pretty sweet -Chris- I'd be so tempted to dust off some of my old wordworking skills and try something similar, I just have nowhere to put it. Keep us posted as to development.

[selbie]

I wish I could find a seat like that. The padding always gets flattened in my cheap computer chairs :P

[-Tikigod-]

Oh my... now that is near enough the coolist thing I've seen made on any Jumpgate forums.

[swfblade]

sweet. Very inpressed! Been toying with this idea since i saw one that a guy made for Flight sim.

[RK Mara]

Can someone sticky this please?

[Pizon]

Unreal..as in..you must be joking.

Call a girl, go to a movie, smell a flower, for the love of Pete, do something...

[-Tikigod-]

Originally Posted by Pizon

Call a girl, go to a movie, smell a flower, for the love of Pete, do something...

Well 3 of those things will be much more interesting when the projects done...

For example they can phone a woman and go "Hey there want to come on over and watch a movie in my spaceship?"

Now thats gotta be pretty damn original right?

Of course I may also be slightly nerdy so perhaps such things are not generally that appealing in such situations.....