Hi all.

I have become interested in expanding the FS experience a little more toward a "total immersion" situation.  To that end, I initially just planned on upgrading my flight controls to include a yoke, pedals, and a throttle module, at the minimum.  But that thought has now led me to look at the other options I might explore too.... like building a somewhat inexpensive simulation flightdeck, adding other controller types, and the like.

Not being a recent winner of the Megabucks lottery...... I am looking at accomplishing this as simply and inexpensively as possible.

I was thinking that there might be others that share this interest.  I see this possible proposed Forum section covering such stuff as setting up multiple monitor displays, using stuff like FSUIPC/WideFS/WideView, constructing the physical layout of the "cockpit" and panels, developing flight controls and switches, interfacing controls, the commercial control addons + software available, finding components/ switches/ parts, and so on.  It could run pretty much the gamut of this idea... from just adding a few "bells and whistles on the low end ..... up to maybe even tackling full motion on the upper extreme.  And all in between.

I don't see this forum restricted to discssing ONLY totally freeware and homebrew flight controls...... of course we already buy the sims, the computers, the joysticks (etc.) that we use...... but I would HOPE that the main focus of the discussions would be on how to do as much of this stuff for as little money as possible.  Of course there would be SOME things that one just HAS to buy to do this much at all  .

I posted a message in the "Forum Suggestions" section yesterday and Pete responded that it was a possibility and that I should see how much interest there might be.

SO ........that is what I am doing here.

If this is a subject area that you think would be good "fodder" for a separate forum section..... let me know.  I'll get back to Pete with the results......and he'll likely be watching the nimbers and comments here too anyway.

(My own homebrew thoughts do NOT run to full motion, exact scale recreations of 747's  . )


best,

.................john

yeah. that does look nice. I would build one myself if I had the money. but if I read the above post correctly, he was planning on using multiple monitors for extra realism.

I would be interested John.  It is something that I have been considering for some time but due to current (and continuing) space constraints this is likely to remain in the "interest" stage for some time.

As a starter for ten I recently built my own set of rudder pedals for less than £10 using an old joystick.  For another £10-£20 I could make them much better.

It seems to me that a good understanding of electronics and an understanding of how M$ flight sims output the information is essential, but this gets back to our earlier discussions on how to make more realistic damage to the aircraft.

Will

This has been done in quite some frequency, and, in fact, there's a webring dedicated to the homebuilt cockpit.

Or you could just go to www.projectmagenta.com

There are companies that produce equipment and replica pieces specifically for this journey.

Good luck!

I guess they deleated my links to the info i posted are they that scared of flightsim.com nither one makes any money off this information ole well.flightsim.com has some information on building rudder pedals and lots of info on this topic i wont bother with the adding links if there going to get deleated though.

Will,

Because of the homebrew cockpit idea..... I decided to pick up a full FSUIPC licence as well as a licence for WideFS (total about $35).... which allows you to run multiple PC's to hook up instrument gauges on discrete screens as what they call a "glass cockpit".  That led me to want to write the code to create some of my own custom instruments for those stand alone PC's (those "gauges" operate as stand alone programs accessing current inflight FS data via WideFS and FSUIPC).  So I also downloaded the FSUIPC SDK. 

THAT was a real find and an interesting read!!!!!!!!  BTW..... you can download that SDK for free from the Dowson site and check it out.

Anyway..... going back to our prior discussions about inflight emergencies... from reading the FSUIPC SDK, I gathered that there appears to be some ways using FSUIPC to both read and also WRITE TO data coming from FS2004.  So my visual effects file that I am developing using the "I" (smoke) key should be able to be triggered from a VERY short background VB program that is reading variables of choice (what causes the scenario) from the FSUIPC data stream and then start the scenario happening by writing the "I" keppress.

So this emergeency file might get more elaborate.  But take more time to do also  .

So.... I'm just starting to plan the layout of my "cockpit" simulator.  I think it will be a generic "large jet"....... two or four engine.  Not a specific attempt to copy a specific plane.  The temptation is there to make a "fighter" cockpit....... but I don't really fly those often at all.    

Likely I will just model the left seat side up to about centerline just to the right of the center console...... going to the full width takes lots of space plus about double the controls (and double the eventual $$$$).  Plus to be realistic you'd have to "link" the flight controls.... tough to do.

Right now my favorite plane to fly is the BAe 146-200..... and that might end up being the basic model that I work off of for the layout.  I have a lot of data already on it.....and use the great model by Jon Murchison.

So..... I'll keep you posted on the effects stuff. 

best,

..................john

It's all beggining to sound quite interesting.  Sadly I won't have the space to do this for a few years at least.

Keep us up to date tho'

Will

I think a lot of the time guests look and get logged plus you get logged every time you look in.  Three people writing 12 replies (four each) would log at least 8 views each for 24.  add to this the other 9 voters and you have 33 views of the thread and so it goes...

Glad the hacked keyboard helps, I'm full of ideas just empty of ways to make it work.  What you are doing with extra monitors and PC's sounds good but in a small flat I have barely enough room for one PC.  As I say I will keep watching and learning and when I have the space I will start my own development.

Will