Build 012 Progress
Really nice to see this excellent build coming together from one of our builders in Australia!
New batch of Malcolm Hoods
Last week the batch of 6 canopies from a UK supplier of real world Spitfire Malcolm Hoods arrived. We managed to procure these at a good price point and are very pleased with the result. What is particularly gratifying is that the canopies match our tooling exactly, proving the accuracy of our own model. Five of the canopies are already spoken for but we have one available. Contact us for further details should you be interested.
Windscreen Brows now ready
Our batch of 50 new windscreen brows have finally arrived. The quality of the new mould is superb and really vindicates the time, effort and cost to get there. They are available at €70 each to Build License Holders.
Force Feedback – Let it blow!!
One of the elements that hugely increase immersion in VR is wind. We have been working on and completed the design of a wind blower system that will work on two fronts, one external and one internal. The external units are two 140mm high efficiency fans mounted either side of the windscreen. They will blow once the engine starts up and while the canopy is open. The wind force will increase as a function of propeller revolutions. There will also be a yaw effect in that the side towards which the tail is yawing will have a higher velocity blow. The external units will be mounted on swivels so can be moved out of the way when not being used.
When the canopy is closed the external units will shut off and only the internal unit will work.
The internal blower will also work off the prop revs and be powered by a 60mm fan. The design mimics the vent used in the real Spitfire, being positioned just under the forward right cockpit coaming, in our case though the vent blows toward the pilots face. We have already produced the units and will be fitting them to the prototype in the next few weeks, so I hope to report on their efficacy in the next post!
