I received the following questions today from Jan Svoboda and my email response failed to send for some reason. So Jan, I hope you get this and I hope you don’t mind me responding publicly as I am sure there are others with the same question.
Dear Jan,
Many thanks for your interest in our venture. In answer to your questions the following:
Do you have any timeline when the simulator parts will be done?
- Our planning is to complete the designs and prototype build by the end of the year.
Will you supply leather parts, canopy and other parts in the shop?
- No, we don’t plan on that at the moment but this will depend on what we find during the building of the prototype.
- We intend providing full plans, including construction methods, for all of the build.
- However, where there are more difficult components to the build, as for instance the Malcolm Hood (bubble canopy) could be, we will consider keeping a number in stock. Bear in mind though that the shipping cost for such a bulky item will be high, therefore we will endeavor to find an easy way to make these for builders.
- Leather patterns will be made available. These can be cut and stitched easily by your local leatherworkers. The same will apply to laserjet cutting of aluminium and CNC routing of plywood. Most major centres in the world have these services available and shipping things which can easily be done locally does not make financial sense.
- 3D Printed SLS Nylon components will be available from our Shapeways shop. (We do not make the shape files available for these for self-printing)
And I would like to know if it will be possible to use simulator also for commercial purposes?
- The purchase of a plans set will license the builder to build one example of the simulator cockpit. This may be used privately or commercially, for instance by museums or training organisations. The software that forms the basis of the simulator, for instance DCS World’s Spitfire Mk.IX, will be subject to their licence agreements and the builder/operator will need to make their own arrangements in that regard, although we are always available and happy to provide assistance or advice.
Let me know if that that helps and feel free to ask more questions. Be sure to follow our progress on our web page and we also always appreciate any “LIKE”’s we get on our Facebook page 😊