You know all those little scraps you have from prior jobs sitting around (all those circles and rectangles of acrylic and ply, that you tell yourself/significant other you will absolutely use some day) well it finally happened and I used the scrap for an actual part. I have used the scrap before as a shim or a thing to do something else on (epoxy on acrylic prevents a lot of gluing to the table!) but for the emergency oxygen mask panel in the flight simulator the test button has a sight-glass that pops out when the button is tested to verify the oxygen tank pressure is sufficient. In the real plane it is a glass cylinder about 11mm around, but I figured a little circle of thick clear acrylic is exactly what was needed. So grabbed a scrap piece of thick clear proofgrade acrylic and cut an 11mm circle. You can see it in the photo on the top left (it will have some Al foil behind it in a moment to look like the real one. (and don’t worry that push to test button was a test the real one will look much better). The tubing will connect at the 2 circles in the middle (right hand door hidden for clarity) which is 1/2” surgical tubing covered by 1/2” PET cable braid painted with steel colored enamel) and the mask itself (the underside of that black thing with the red handles will have a CPAP mask for the “oxygen mask” and the straps on a self-donning mask are actually surgical tubing with a fabric cover so the mask straps inflate to lock on the pilot’s head so he can keep a hand on the joystick or wheel while donning it).
Here is the real pair of them on an Airbus (although the Boeing one is virtually identical since they all are from the same supplier - Eros). The pair is because the A320 has a station for an instructor pilot (or check airman) and so needs oxygen and stuff for the third person, this is to the left and slightly behind the captain in the left seat)
