Quote from Hangar45 Admin on December 14, 2017, 11:53 am

(Original thread started on 03-12-17 by Mark Speechley)

The Australian International Airshow at Avalon was held this year on the weekend of the 3rd,4th and 5th of March. It is held every second year and is always at Avalon airport between Melbourne and Geelong in Victoria. ORBX actually models this airfield for those interested in purchasing.

https://orbxdirect.com/product/ymav

 

Mark Cooper, myself (Mark Speechley) and for those privileged to have caught up with at Ron's place in 2016, Peter Nicholas attended the night show on the Friday night. The night show is termed loosely as we got to the show at lunchtime with the flying starting around 2pm and going through to 9pm. there was so much to see on the ground that we could've gotten there at 9am and still not went through all the static displays. As it was we missed the 2 JSF 35's arriving around 11am in RAAF liveries.

 

Well were we surprised to find that a Learjet 45 was going to give a flying display. Woohoo!

 

As we walked around the static display we actually came across the Lear parked and ready. Well we struck up a conversation with what turned out to be the mechanic and he allowed us to get next to the plane for pictures.

 

 

 

We proceeded to tell him that we were building the sim and proceeded to show him what pictures I had on my phone. Well !!!!!!

 

then he opened up for us to look into the cockpit and proceeded to tell us that he had changed something and what was it? I was so excited that I missed it completely.

 

Here are the pictures of the cockpit. I particularly was interested in fitting the seats in hence more detailed pictures from that perspective.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So as you can see quite a tight fit. I actually asked the mechanic how the pilot got in and he says that he has his own technique which involved standing on the seat?  The actual chief pilot was waiting to boot us out as he had a small band of student pilots to show through so our short time was up.

 

We sat in the stands and watched the airshow and had the F16 do a gut rumbling aerobatic display and then the Learjet came down the runway for it's turn. Well I can tell you that it flew very sedately passed the crowd with very little noise or fanfare, no loops or barrel rolls just up and back. Reasonably fast but surprisingly quiet.

 

Did you pick the change in the main panel ? Look at the last picture and you will see the alteration for the backup gauges. He says that instead of three gauges it is now one. Looks like 2 but without him turning the avionics on I'll have to take his word for it.

 

Well that was our airshow and a wonderful surprise of the Lear. I think I'll still take the F16 but will make do with my wonderful LEARJET45.

 

Enjoy the pictures guys.

Mark S. and Mark C.

 

(Posted by Shane Barnes on 03-13-17)

Awesome photos, thanks for sharing! The change to the standby instruments is interesting.

 

(Posted by Ron Rollo on 03-13-17)

Hey Mark, you lucky dogs! Great to see that you guys got to get in a real Lear45. I saw that standby gauge change before I even read your post. There are a few other things worth noting. First, because I am designing the Display Units, I could not help but notice that the bezels are a little fatter on the sides. I wonder if these are a new LED or LCD type of DU?

 

The second thing that I noticed is that they have RAM mounts mounted to the yokes just like I do in my sim. This means they are more than likely using iPad mini's. Last but not least, the parking brake is not set! Great photos Mark!

 

(Posted by Mark Cooper on 03-14-17)

Hi Ron, we had a good day that day and Mark S. was pretty happy to see the L45 when we came across it at the show. You obviously have a good eye for detail! When we were talking to the maintainer he was telling us that this was the first one that he has put the new LCD DU's into. ( I think I have that right?) Anyway , good pickup! The reason the park brake wasn't on is due to the fact that the aircraft was hooked up to the 'tug' and being prepared for the staging area prior to its display. It was great to actually see it fly. The main impact seeing it in person for me, was the compactness/lack of room in the cockpit, given that we are trying to squeeze the seats into L45 #12 at the moment. I knew it was tight but never realized just how tight!

 

(Posted by Ron Rollo on 03-15-17)

Hey Mark C., good to hear from you! Yes, attention to detail was something that was beaten into my head in Navy boot camp. And as I said before, I am in the final phases of drawing and planning the DU's for our Lear45 sims so to say the least, I have spent hours and hours looking at these things. The DU's in the Lear45 that you guys were in stood out like four sore thumbs to me!!! LOL

 

I will probably stick with the design that I have which models the CRT tube design. Although it is cool to hear that the real Lear45 has finally caught up with the times and is slowly moving to LCD or LED like we have been using in the sim world all these years.

 

I also see in the future some of us wanting to move to the new digital standby instrument. Looks like a cool project when we get bored!

 

(Posted by Mark Speechley on 05-14-17)

Hi guys, and any gals, I have just noticed this good quality video on YouTube of the Learjet 45 flying at Avalon. This will complement the pictures I have earlier included. The second half is 'only' of a Pitts doing aerobatics.

 

Add this to our collection. One thing I did notice however was the quietness of the engines when flying by:

 

https://youtu.be/9IpZj9WRq6U