Hello Hornet Pit Builders...
Time to time I get PM asking me what are the dimensions of the Hornet cockpit to get them started on building? Alot of these questions were answered at Frugalsworld.com But they are long gone.
And also given the fact there is tons of info on how to build a Viper pit and absolutely nothing on the F/A-18 Hornet. I decided to start this thread.

I will help you if I can and If you have anything to contribute plz post here. Thank you.


To Start:
This is the front end of a real Hornet that the Navy Loaned and all my pit measurement came from. It is long gone now. The Navy sold it to a museum.



This is an early rough patch of of my "C" pit. Posted in an earlyer thread. BTW: The only real Hornet part in this picture is the Ejection seat pull ring.



The Bucket, With center stick

Getting started......
The easyest Ive found with out having a real Hornet in your garage was to find a Hornet NATOPS flight manual in PDF format. Find the cockpit foldout sections in the back. Take the one you want to a print shop and inlarge it to 400%. Yes 400. And have it printed. When you are done you with have the basic demenshions of the pit layout.
When we took the real Honret parts and layed them on the inlarged print it was a perfect match as could be.

This is a DDI Bezel layed on the enlarged print. Close enough for me

Remeber the Foldouts have the Side Panels...Print them to!



Cut out and seperated. 3D

Some more basic dimensions.

Center Stick: All steel with self centering actuators.

DDI MFD Bezels and Hud combinder

Ive managed to get some real Hornet stuff. Like the Gear handle, Chaff/Flare center panel, Canopy eject handle and weapons jettison Button on instrumnet panel.

I have all the knobs and switches. The only hangup I have with my project is makeing or finding the individual Instrument panels.

Another setback was.. I bought some Thrustmaster Cougar F-16 MFD to take apart to use in my Hornet Bezels. But when I took them apart they were way to complicated to break up and make them work

Cheers !
/O Pretzel

This is some incredible work, thank you for sharing.

Pretzel, can you provide more details on (what appears) to be a gas spring that you're using for the stick centering mech? I'm going to be totally rebuilding how I did the stick centering system in the F-15 and I like how compact your set up is.

Thanks!

g.

[Accidental duplicate post]

Fantastic stuff, Pretzel.