Flightdeck Solutions

[pcos]

Once again folks, it is time for us to open our doors and gather as many of the group as we can for a weekend of discussion and Camaraderie.
We have quite event planned.

GUEST SPEAKERS
This year we are super excited to have numerous guest speakers. Two of the Pioneers of this entire pursuit we all find ourselves in are going to be in attendance as well as offering an overview of their setups. JAMES PRICE and MATT FORD. Both of these gentlemen are inspirational figures to many of us that have been around this community for the past ten years. Most of us who explored the idea of building a setup could not search more than a few pages without seeing Matt or James' project link popping up. They are the masters of taking real aircraft parts and bringing them back to life. We look forward to a very interesting presentation and discussion with our special guests.

Last year we had Angus Wighton with us and he gave a fantastic overview of his career as a Business Jet Pilot here in Canada as well as his personal sim project. From there, Angus spent hours talking to the group and flying one of our setups. Simply not a bonafide event unless Angus is with us. Hopefully his schedule works in our favor and we have him back. Angus offered to discuss procedural elements related to Jepp charts as well as a few good real world experiences in his day job flying a GIV!

Also coming back this year and presenting on Visual Systems and his project will be Jon Boe. Jon has been around the FDS group for years and is currently working on a large B777 Visual setup for a customer of ours. He will give an overview of his many system variations as well as some points on getting the most out of yours, options to look at etc.

Steve Cos will be on in the morning to give his "Reports from my suitcase". Steve has been travelling more than ever and has so many pictures and stories to share. Always humorous and a good chance to see many things you won't see on our webpage.

The www.cockpitbuilders.com folks are going to be with us and this will be their first chance to have an event in which to get together. We are super pleased to host this here at FDS and will be making the facility available for them on Sunday morning to exchange ideas and share about their projects.

For myself, it is always a great time when we see our customers and friends here with us. As many of you know.. We moved to a new facility and we are all quite proud of this one. We are really excited to have the space to do an event like this.
You will most likely see our B737NG Demo Sim in place with a 3 Channel Collimated display system. Mark from Sim-A will be on hand and able to go over his fantastic work in a flying set up.
We have several other projects on the go and they will be here and visible. One is quite something to see and I will leave that to your imagination for now.
We will also have a JetMax unit in place and flyable for those that want to see what we are doing in this new area.

All in all.. the key thing is that we are all able to get together and enjoy some time talking about our passion. aviation and simulation.
For FDS, it is another chance to invest back into the group and do our part to push things forward. We have some limitations on attendance so please do confirm if you would like to be with us for the Saturday Main event. Friday night is "meet and greet", family and friends etc. Saturday is the main event.
I will post a detailed schedule shortly.
All the best and I hope to see you here!
Peter
_________________
____________________
Peter Cos
President
Flightdeck Solutions (FDS)

[michelmvd]

Hi Peter,

Great your are organizing a new open door. Looking with great interest to see the new facilities as well.
Just to confirm, the event is from Friday evening till sunday afternoon?
1-2-3 june

Will do all I can to be there.
B. Rgds
Michel
_________________
Michel VANDAELE
Member of board FSCB
EBOS Scenery Designteam
My B744 project
http://users.telenet.be/michel.vandaele/sim1.htm

[ciobykanu]

Hey Peter, I'm soooo looking forward to this event and please count me in as well. I will be attending with my wife and, of course the youngest fan of sims and planes my son David.

[pcos]

Folks,
Please make a point of confirming by email if you are planning to attend. The Saturday event. I have to get a rough idea on people as we are planning Food and Drinks next week.
Email only please.
Peter
_________________
____________________
Peter Cos
President
Flightdeck Solutions (FDS)

[Jetcos]

After some long days (evenings), staff that jumped in to help out with finishing up projects and some help from a few customers (Maurice, Ralph W. and Dave E. to name a few) and having Mark from Sim-A available in person to clean up the last items on the B737 we had in the shop we were ready for the Friday evening Open House.

Guests started showing up and the "meet and greet" began. As always it is great to meet "old" friends and meet and make new ones. Put faces to the names we see in emails and phone calls. We also had many suppliers show up and show them what we do with the components they provide us with from our designs. Special thanks to Mike from Hammerhill for the great signs in our Foyer. Mike has been a long time supplier with FDS. The evening went well, we unveiled a full B737 Trainer on a Motion Platform. We were happy to have our customer Sam arrive to share in the excitement of his project. He was gracious enough to allow us to have our customers and guests try out his simulator. Working with Sam has been great, his passion for his hobby is amazing. We look forward to getting his project delivered to him as soon as possible. Thanks Sam!

Special thanks to Marnix and Xavier from Motion for Simulators for their time with the motion platform. It was great meeting them and we look forward to working with them in the future.

Saturday morning came early, the setup began as customers, builders were arriving at 9am to listen to our guest speakers.

Speakers were:

Peter Cos with a "Welcome message" and FDS highlights

Steven Cos with "From the suitcase of Steve Cos" on travelling and projects. Also a commentary on working with some great customers over the years.

Jon Boe with details on visuals and setting up a great curved projection solution.

Angus Wighton a regular guest speaker with FDS, discussing his career, simulator and helping us understand some elements of Jeppesen Charts. As usual very interesting and a great "edge of your seat" story on an inflight emergency.

Matt Ford with his continuing B737 (real nose, culminated display) project that has been the inspiration to many builders starting out.

James Price also discussing his B737 project and the talking about software, EPIC and the people that played an important part in his project.

More socializing and flying. Then off to get together and eat. A great day for sure.


Sunday started at 9am as well. This was the Cockpitbuilders.com portion of the weekend. With an overview of the site from Trevor Hale and more flying in Sam's motion simulator. Thanks to Jack, Bob and Trevor doing their part.


All in all a fabulous weekend of simming, discussing, learning and friendship. We want to thank all our guest speakers for their time and preparation for our event. Our customers for showing up and we appreciate your continued support. We also meet some future customers getting ready to start projects, we all look forward to watching their projects come together.


Special thanks to Pete and Sorina for putting this together and arranging the food and catering. Our staff for doing their part to get the shop ready.

Watch for pictures and video's.

Thanks everyone and see you at the next Flightdeck Solutions Open House.
_________________
Steve Cos
Vice President and Tech Support
Flightdeck Solutions (FDS)

[DaveA330]

A great big thank-you to Pete, Steve and Sorina Cos along with the rest of the FDS crew for a great weekend. The new location is superb and the staging of the various simulator setups was fantastic. Thanks for the food and beverages, everytime you turned around there seemed to be something else to eat or drink.

To all the guest speakers, interesting and informative. Thank-you. To hear from Matt and James speak personally about their simulators was truly a highlight of the event. Steve Cos gave us some insight into his world travels, always interesting to hear about. Jon Boe, a wealth of knowledge on visuals. Angus, you are a great speaker. Just like a true pilot, your talk was methodical always providing us with a "lesson to be learned" from your experiences.

Sam, a huge thank-you for allowing us to use your simulator.

It was great seeing Mark from Sim-A and Ralph work their magic in the 737. (Peter, I am thinking....ummmm)

Again, thank-you Peter and Steve for staging another open house, looking forward to the next one.

Dave

[pcos]

Some images from our Open House Event are here:










_________________
____________________
Peter Cos
President
Flightdeck Solutions (FDS)

[pcos]

Very excited to show the first FDS Full Motion Simulator that was unveiled during the open house event. Marnix and Xavier from MotionForSimulators were on hand and worked closely with Steve and the team here. Sim-Avionics software, FSX, etc...
Peter

Video 1: (First Motion Test)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rzd8cWeNtis&feature=youtu.be
Video 2: (First Manned Video)
Steve and our Customer Sam try the Motion Sim for the first flight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBlewe_aG0k&feature=youtu.be







_________________
____________________
Peter Cos
President
Flightdeck Solutions (FDS)

[melnato]

Looks like a Blast!
Missed all you guys....next time I hope...
I flew my sim all weekend (hear that Mau? ) just to distract myself
from not being there.
Congrats to FDS and Cockpitbuilders for another cool event.

Nat
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www.natvis.com.au

[N737AG]

We missed you old buddy
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Axel Grau
Project : Boeing 737-800

[mauriceb]

[Angus Wighton]

As a long time sim builder any opportunity to visit Peter, Steve and the great staff at FDS is always high on my "fun" list of things to do (even if a little frustrating in seeing so many sim "toys" I can't really afford!) ..... but to experience one of their Open Houses - the "enjoyment meter" goes off the clock. Such was the case last weekend!

I always enjoying "talking shop" with other sim builders and with many old & new friends from "cockpitbuilders.com" on hand, it made for a fantastic weekend event.

Thanks first of all to Peter, Steve and all the staff of Flightdeck Solutions for so graciously opening their new facilities to host the Event. I have known Peter & Steve for a decade and even with their huge success they still treat each individual customer, like myself, with the outmost respect. I am by no means a big customer but you would never know it - two of the classiest businessmen you will ever deal with.

Its always nice to see my old friends Maurice, Dave, Jack & Steve W up at FDS, but also nice to finally meet Trevor and many of the Cockpitbuilders.com gang that I had only known online, through their website.

I also want to echo all the accolades directed at the incredible Sim-A Software created & designed by Mark during the weekend, which I experienced first-hand at the controls of Ralph's sim a couple of months ago - it is THAT good!! I was over in London England with my Gulfstream and spent a couple of nights with them in Ralph's spectacular B737 Simulator, ringing out the Sim-A software by flying in and out of European airports that I often fly in my sim (giving me a great comparison). It worked flawlessly and when I made comments like "well, in the aircraft the actual indication would be ...." I could hear Mark's pen scribbling down notes, and the next day the changes were made! So this brilliant software has been derived through his continuous effort to make improvements - that work ethic on display all weekend long at the FDS Open House with Mark & Ralph, keyboard in hand, working on one sim setup after another!

The highlight for me was of course meeting James & Matt who, without whom, this hobby might have never become what it is today. It was great to hear how these true pioneers of our hobby came to build their home built simulators from a real B737 nose sections, shipped from airliner graveyards direct to their suburban garages. Unreal!!

However I am also so pleased that Peter & Steve Cos came along to provide me with USB connections because it would never have happened for me if I had to wire up real aircraft parts to a computer!! Presently I have a new TQ, new CDU, new Comms, new Navs, new Wx Radar, new Fire Panel, Rudder & Aileron Trim Panel AND a USB Hub ..... all waiting for a complete center console rebuild in my simulator.

FDS builds the best simulator parts in the business and pilots that fly my simulator marvel at their accuracy. Thanks again to Peter, Steve & all the great staff at Flightdeck Solutions for all you do, and how you do it. First class!

[Jon Boe]

A great time by all...

Axel and I missed the Friday evening activities as the flight conditions into Toronto were not the best. I was about 5 hours late and Axel elected to wait for me, and to recover from his multiple holds and go around behind the A380. Special thanks to my "navigator" for getting us up the Newmarket in the rain.

Sam's motion sim is amazing. If I had a 3-story room and 3-phase power available it would be on the radar screen as the next step. Maybe that sim building in the backyard to give the wife back the house? Being a B747 guy and used to starting the flare at 50 feet I didn't give it a try as I was afraid I'd auger it into the asphalt. (Did that in Denver with the 767 at the UAL training center).

The presentations by Matt and James were amazing. Clearly at a level we can all aspire too but will like expire trying to reach if the wife finds out... just kidding.

Cheers,

Jon (Sometimes known as Joe because of the way I spell my name)

[Karl]

It was only a matter of time, 'it’s alive' just a quick question, is the scenery mean to stay still and only the sim move?
Great job.... I want one
_________________
Karl
B737NG Builder

[Karl]

Ah, yes thanks for for the info, great video Bob Hoover, he is a legend
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Karl
B737NG Builder