History

The "Falcon" project was started in the Winter of 1998 in cold basement of our Northeast US home. The reason was, I needed a hobby to prevent me from being "available" to do other (albeit) more important things (home chores). The hobby has turned into a lifetime but enjoyable "cross". 

The intent was to build a 100% scale mockup of the F-16 cockpit based on the Falcon 4 flight simulator. Although original project was to build a two place F-15E cockpit mock-up based on the F-15 simulator by Janes, by the time the forward interior cockpit structure was completed,  Falcon 4 came out with a much more desirable quality (the whole front instrument panel was on one screen) and the homepit  was converted to an F-16C. For this reason, you will see the cockpit "shape" looks more like an Eagle than a Viper. In mid 1999, the homepit (and the rest of the family) was moved over 1,000 miles to the Southeast. At that time, only the internal cockpit structure was nearing completion and needed disassembly. Since then, the external structure was completed, cockpit panels installed, canopy installed (and then redesigned to accommodate the Eagle 1 Project), painted and wiring inteface completed. Since then, a second cockpit was being added off the back (Project Eagle), the center console was also converted to accomodate a third MFD .

The Homepit

The structure is constructed mostly out of wood. The footprint in exactly 4'X8'. The basic flight controls are provided by Thrustmaster with their FLCS, TQS and RCS devices. The primary display is a 36" monitor by Princeton Graphics which sits directly behind the forward instrument panel. The ejection seat is an old 1950's McDonnell Douglas Escapac (off an F8 Crusader) which I built into the seat cushions with bass shakers (both the seat and back), and fabricated the ejection seat rails (with 2X4s).