Today I received a real Gables 7168 Audio Panel from the States. I bought it in Ebay for a very cheap price and it looked in very bad conditions. Instead once cleaned it turned out to be in very good shape and the inside is just perfect! It has been built in 2001 and has been property of NorthWest Airlines.

Though is almost impossible to use such a panel in a simulator I bought it anyway because I need a lot of electronic components in it to assemble a my own semi-functional audio panel. This Gables uses the very same pull and turn pots and interlocked buttons that the Learjet 45’s M-Audio panel has. It has been nice to open it, find a test point for the front panel backlighting and check out that it is perfectly working

I also learnt from it some interesting way to backlight front knobs from diffused light in the front panel. Something that I surely use later in some of my panels.

written by l45 captain \\ tags: audio, cockpit, gables, learjet, panel, simulator