THE COMET PROJECT
The Comet Project
The Comet project was started by my brother-in-law [Mike] over10 years ago and the plan was simple: Obtain a Comet cockpit and restore it to its former glory. Easy peezy I hear you cry. OK, so where is it going to come from and why a Comet? Well.........Mike was an engineer for Dan-Air and my father used to fly Comets for them and it was the first British jet airliner, well the first in the world. Right, so the aircraft choice was easy, now, where can we get a Comet from? Well, it just so happened that Mike had a job at Boscombe Down and in the corner of the airfield was this old Comet,  this one.............
So there it was; G-APDF/XV814 going slightly mouldy on a disused dispersal and it was due to be scrapped! A stroke of luck or what?
G-APDF/XV814 before distribution to museums and Mike Mike's bit
"Now chaps, before you haul it away to the smelters yard, can I have this bit, please?" " With pleasure", came the reply," for a small amount of hard earned loot."  Right, lets get it back to the garden, don't worry about the power cables, trees and a crane - trust me Guv! From this to this................
from Boscombe XV814 original cockpit happy in the Cotswolds Restored cockpit
Original Cockpit as XV814
After 8 years of begging, EBay and work
Mike had achieved the impossible in 8 years, a fully restored Comet 4 cockpit completly wired for lights and sound, with all the original pieces installed including the Engineer's panel. Easy, well you try to get a comet 4 weather radar or 2 pairs of rudder pedals or the hundreds of gauges that were missing or broken! Those of you that are into aviation and flight sims will realise what an awesome feat this has been. Then all that hard work was trashed by one comment. "Mike, the only problem with the Comet, is that sitting here in the North Cotswolds, we don't have 300kts of wind going through the pitot tube to drive the flight instruments". "No problem", came the reply, "Simkits do gauges for cockpits that are controlled through FS9 and a relay board - all we have to do is change the existing [rocking horse pooh] gauges for electrical ones!"  "Oh Sh*t!" was the families' considered response.
So here is a little pictorial tribute to Mike and the last 2 years. Firstly, take a perfectly good restored panel then rip the guts out of it.
Flight instruments original flight instruments original plus some new ones original flight intruments black holes in the Captains panel
Now lets put the heart of the new system in, the bit that converts the FS9 or FSX inputs into readable signals on the gauges. Insert many actuaters, servos, cable ribbons, stick shakers, horns, lights and bits of bubble gum.
Relay panels CPU location at Nav station
With the conversion panel [relay panel] sitting at the Navigator's station, it is time to put in the new instruments. NEW instruments - I hear a collective gasp, but they will all be sky blue and dayglow, hardly 1950's style. Ahhh, where there is a will, there is a way! Lets take the main AI for example.
What we got.
What we want.
AI blue AI black
And this is how to do it.
painted and half finished AI Nearly finished AI The old new AI
So repeat the above for all the new gauges [which come in kit form, so repainting is not too hard]. And eventually the panel is starting to take shape [again!] and now looks like this:
3/4 restored for on-line flights
To bring this bang up to date, the engine instruments [and the complete panel] above the throttles, have been rebuilt and connected to FS9. I will bet that you always wondered what all those many items in FS9\settings\controls\assignments were for - well now you know, they have been put in for Mike to connect his cockpit to FS9! We have all four engines working to the correct temps and pressures, the VOR1 and VOR2 with DME [that was hard] all function correctly, the stick shaker works, in a most alarming fashion, and there is what we call a fart cushion under the pilots seat to give that characteristic rumble in the jungle whilst taxying. There is the Hostess call which to date has been met with a stony silence, but we live in hope that a suitable candidate will appear with 2 mugs of tea one day! Amazingly, it all works and is now connected to the internet, so the next step is to fly on-line in a grand opening with our chums over at www.jersey-va.co.uk/DanAir That will be a sight and it will be announced here first! Just to keep the FE's happy, the FE's panel remains fully functional but it is not linked to FS9........Yet.           Here it is:
comet FE's panel [fully wired]
Further updates and pix will follow shortly, and if anyone has 3 large flatscreen monitors, please, please let us have first refusal as our overhead projector is not quite up for the job. Mail your comments to whbandb@yahoo.co.uk.


Dated 22 June 2007