How does one start a home cockpit?

[Guest bowingic]

Hi MauriceThis is, I stress a personal opinion, but one I believe makes a lot of sense.Build your shell first!This way you will have plenty of time to assess all the interfacing choices and take advantage of the very latest developments in interfacing when the time comes for fitting out. The other advantage is that you have somewhere to put each device as you complete it and something that looks and feels like a flight deck along the way.You will need to make some initial decisions about such things as monitor size, type etc based on your budget intentions.Good Luck...its a much bigger task than I estimated but as they say...it is a sad day when all the work is done!!!

[LawnDart 19]

I don't know if I totally agree with building the shell first.. An average sim project entails hundreds of hours spent within the internals of the sim. Having to work within the confines of a shell from the beginning would get old real quick. Imagine rebuilding your car's engine while never removing it from the car...I am sure there are some benefits. However, going to bed every night with a sore neck and back probably isn't one of them.EDIT:hehe.. already I am second-guessing myself. Your sim frame is one superb piece of work! Nice job! (I guess it depends on how young you are! ;-) )

[Guest Binkles]

As much as I've complained about making boards, I've found it for me the easiest start.If you can get someone to print the boards to start with I would suggest it, but even if you don't have someone the actually making of the boards believe it or not is easier than actually soldering the parts.What I did is got my first boards printed, but I stuffed a couple of them up, and then learnt how to make the boards - and I made them a lot cheaper than buying them, and of a good quality - at least I think so.I have both the fskey and the display boards and I have set up some basic switches to run a basic autopilot board - which is working fine.Plus the feeling of getting the part I thought was going to be hardest working was amazing - now I'm ready to try different parts of the cockpit.

[Guest bowingic]

Hi RayI agree about "rebuilding a car engine without removing it from the car"....but does anyone do this?. Same with sims ....you build the gear on the bench and then fit it into the shell...I hadn't really thought of doing the 400 or so soldered connections on my FMC and breakout box with the FMC in its final position!;-)Thanks for your over generous comments about my shell....and my age...I'm nearly 59 so a sore neck is the least of my problems!Seriously I have found this a good way start a sim and I would do the same on any future project....at least you have something to look at and fly as you go, rather than a whole lot of gadgets waitng for a home.CheersIan

[mauriceb 0]

Hi Ian,Thanks for your response . I would love to be able to build the shell first, but right now I do not have the space. We are planning to build a new house & moving in about 5 years and basically, I want to build it around my future flight simulator room. My wife has different ideas of course :-).In the meantime, I would like to start with smaller modules that I could fit into the future shell. That hopefully will include some of the 'internals' of the shell like the center pedestal for instance.Your shell & your project in general is quite impressive indeed. I'm amazed at the number of homemade parts you have. You sound like a very handy & determined person. Hopefully, some of that will rub on me but I'm afraid I am more impatient & will probably buy as many ready made components as I can afford. I am 59 & time is a definite factor :-)I was also quite intrigued by the pictures you posted with the Cessna screens in place of the 767. When your project is finished, do you intend to make the shell multipurpose or will it be fully dedicated to a 767 cockpit? I would assume the latter is true otherwise the logistics of making the sheel mutipurpose would be quite daunting.Anyway, as an aside, my daughter made a long trip to Australia last summer (your winter) & she loved your country & the people there.Best regards,

[mauriceb 0]

>Essentially, you can think of the offsets as indices into a>large monolithic virtual table that stores a great many>internal variables used within MSFS.>Thanks Mike. Finally, a simple explanation about what offsets really are. I was beginning to think no one could come up with a simple description that makes sense :-)Thanks again,

[mauriceb 0]

Thanks Gary. It's always nice to hear that this is not an 'impossible' project as it sometimes seems when you are overwhelmed with the amount of new & old information from countless sources.Best regards,

[Guest bowingic]

Hi MauriceI should have prefaced my suggestion with "Providing you have the SPACE"....I fully understand your reasoning on that one!Regarding the Cessna panel I was just playing around with the multi screens....at one stage I thought I would make my panel masks easily removable so that I could fly other types in the same shell, but I really don't have time and still have lots to learn about PIC767 on which my sim is based. So yes it is a dedicated 767 but a multi purpose sim is not such a bad idea....aircraft have many common functions and with different configuration files its quite possible to enjoy more than one type in the same "office".Glad your daughter enjoyed OzCheers Ian

[mauriceb 0]

>Hi Maurice>I should have prefaced my suggestion with "Providing you have>the SPACE"....I fully understand your reasoning on that one!>Regarding the Cessna panel I was just playing around with the>multi screens....at one stage I thought I would make my panel>masks easily removable so that I could fly other types in the>same shell, but I really don't have time and still have lots>to learn about PIC767 on which my sim is based. So yes it is a>dedicated 767 but a multi purpose sim is not such a bad>idea....aircraft have many common functions and with different>configuration files its quite possible to enjoy more than one>type in the same "office".>Glad your daughter enjoyed Oz>Cheers >IanHi again,I know it is a stretch, but if you don't really care whether you have an accurate physical layout of one particular type of airliner, is it possible to emulate several different types in the same physical sim. I'm not talking about mixing Cessna's with 747's, but rather flying different types of airliners such as 737's, 767's 777's etc... Since most of these have practically all the same instruments & controls, is it possibel to do that? Or would you need to re-program all your various encoders & instruments every time you switched planes. As you can probably tell, I'm quite igorant about the finer points of building home cockpits :-).Just trying to have my cake & eat it too, but perhaps I should just be content with coffee & donut. :-)Thanks

[tigert 0]

>Hi again,>I know it is a stretch, but if you don't really care whether>you have an accurate physical layout of one particular type of>airliner, is it possible to emulate several different types in>the same physical sim. I'm not talking about mixing Cessna's>with 747's, but rather flying different types of airliners>such as 737's, 767's 777's etc... Since most of these have>practically all the same instruments & controls, is it>possibel to do that? Or would you need to re-program all your>various encoders & instruments every time you switched planes.>As you can probably tell, I'm quite igorant about the finer>points of building home cockpits :-).>>Just trying to have my cake & eat it too, but perhaps I should>just be content with coffee & donut. :-)Basically the same functions work on different aircraft - all autopilots in FS use the same mechanisms - course selector etc.The problem is that many of those add-on planes that have sophisticated systems added on top of FS (PIC767, the PMDG 737NG etc) have their own code that bypasses FS. Thus those things are different. Sometimes you can interface those wiht keyboard events or such, but getting stuff out of the sim can be hard on those since the things are not present on the standard FSUIPC offsets.Generic planes are thus much easier to interface. I am building around the Dreamfleet Cessna 310 twin which is neat, has a handful of stuff to keep you busy but everything works through the standard things.//Tuomas

[mauriceb 0]

>The problem is that many of those add-on planes that have>sophisticated systems added on top of FS (PIC767, the PMDG>737NG etc) have their own code that bypasses FS. Thus those>things are different. Sometimes you can interface those wiht>keyboard events or such, but getting stuff out of the sim can>be hard on those since the things are not present on the>standard FSUIPC offsets.Does the Project Magenta software use the 'standard FSUIPC offsets' or do they introduce their own offsets for things that are not modelled in the standard FS such as the FMC for instance? If it is the latter, does that mean you could simply load different project Magenta modules depending on what aircraft you want to fly in your 'generic' cockpit? The above questions probably highlight my ignorance on this subject matter, but I want (need?) to understand these things out before I even attempt to start my own cockpit.Thanks.

[Guest FireMedic]

I read alot of the current replies to your questions. Currently I am building a combat sim of an F-16 Block 50 (current). I am on my third attempt. It is what you call a learning "cliff". My biggest piece of advice is this ... Start with what you are good at. For example ... I am a cabinet maker/welder. So I started with the frame and seat. This will give you a sense of achievment and keep the fuel flowing. If you have questions about certain tasks work on them in small sections. There are way too many parts of this project to do them all at once. This is not a weekend project. I took electronics in school 10 years ago ... kinda a learning steep slope to remember everything, but that comes back quick. However computer interface is huge. RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH you can spend a lot of money and go nowhere fast!!!!!! I am not familiar with the commercial bird sims but Falcon 4.0 is touchy on data extraction. Tread litely at first.One last thing pick your focus project and work on it. If you get board or overwehlmed pick another project and so on.Check this site out for a great guide:http://www.mikesflightdeck.com