Hello,As i'm flying this little toy since a few weeks i wanted to share with you my "Wood and Paper 737 panel project". It may present an affordable solution for some builder wich have two left hand and can't manage to build difficult parts themselves.Frame is homemade (as you all can see, yes i'm not a very "manual" guy), MIP is... wood with glued paper :) with a plexi on it.MCP is homemade too (iocards), that is the thing i'm the more proud of, i can't believe i did it, first time i was soldering something in my whole life.Yeah, rest of the stuff is GoFLight, no more time to build (building the MCP was too much work), time to play now !Oh yeah, and pedestal is on wheel, no way this is the "cleverest" thing i made in this simAnd of course, Project magenta. The next hardware needed is the CDU, as for now it is driven by mouse on a laptop.So except the CDU, no need for kayboard or mouse ! Exciting !Pros : Overall, it does its job perfectly.Cons : can't go back to "mono computer" FS gaming...Enjoy

Looking really good. Hard to believe it's made of wood & paper.I can understand that you don't want to go back to desktop flying

What are you talking about?!?!?!?It's excellent!I wish I was able to do something like this!!!George DorkofikisAthens, Greecehttp://online.vatsimindicators.net/811520/1704.pnghttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/betaimg.jpg

>What are you talking about?!?!?!?>It's excellent!>I wish I was able to do something like this!!!Yeah, a perfect home cockpit. The whole purpose was to make flying more realistic, right? So this does that thing just perfectly.Some of us then forget the original goal and the building itself becomes the main hobby instead of the simulator flying, that the cockpit originally tried to make more realistic :) Flying is replaced with an obsession for construction. Which can be just as fun, but there is the difference between those two... :)//Tuomas

Thank you all for your comments !such appreciations of you guys of the community make think i have to be happy of what i did, and to enjoy ityes, wood and paper... actually this is an effective low cost solution for those who think about going this waybelieve me, it does the trickAll the best,comma

>Thank you all for your comments !>such appreciations of you guys of the community make think i>have to be happy of what i did, and to enjoy it>>yes, wood and paper... actually this is an effective low cost>solution for those who think about going this way>believe me, it does the trickSure does. Wood is excellent material. And for example laminated paper on top of it makes a nice durable setup that works great.Always remember you are building for *yourself* only. It's fun to post pics here and get an occasional "ooh" and "aah" from the other guys, but the real reason one builds a cockpit should be to make the simulated flying more realistic. :)The real aircraft noses on others garages do not make their flying any MORE realistic than yours. The magic is in the knobs and controls, not in the material of the panel the knob is attached to :) Sure things can look more or less nice, but when it comes to the actual flying... the basic construction matters more than the cosmetics.//Tuomas

Very Nice!!!!As I've always said.... I don't care if you make your cockpit out of cardboard or real aircraft parts. You're a Flight-Sim cockpit builder!!!! You or anyone else in this hobby, is in this for the same reason. "The Flight-Sim experience" :)

I certainly agree with the comments from the likes of Tuomas. Your set up looks just great and only hope mine will turn out to the same level.Is there any chance you could give us a close up of your MCP and a breif description of its construction?Simonaka The Porcupinewww.desktopflying.co.ukVery slowely putting together a generic(ish) twin desktop unit.

Hello Simon,Sure there is.It is completely based upon the tutorial available on IOCards / opencockpits.com website. All connected to one mastercard and a displaycard.Let me find some photos of the construction (i got very few) and i'll post it.I like your landing gear, i planned to build one but i'm so lazy now about building and have too much real work.How much time approx did it take you to set up ? Would be a great addition to my sim.comma

The lever mechanism was surprisingly easy to build, so much so that I do not have many detailed photos because it was only ment to be a kind of 'proof of concept' prototype but I was so pleased with the result I decided to use it. I would take the time to make one, it is really easy and gives you something big and clunky to move and get results. Total build time, I do not really know but it was not more than a couple of hours after I had done the working out.Construction:The lever has three metal tubes, see attatched diagram, I just hunted around to find the sizes I wanted and cut it on the fly with no specific measurements.The inner most tube has a bit of threaded rod through one end that acts as the pivot point of the whole leverThe main shaft fits over this and has another bit of threaded rod that both acts as a stop for the lever when it returns after being pulled and moved. It also follows the movement guides cut into the two MDF end plates. The large washers stop the whole thing twisting laterally. I have used elastic hair bands strung between the two bits of threaded rod to retract the lever when not moving.The final bit of tube fits on the outside of the main shaft and is designed to hold the wheel at the end. I used a grinding wheel to cut the notch that the wheel slides into. As yet I have not fixed the wheel in place because I am waiting for an IKEA store to open in the vacinity so I can get hold of a clear plastic wheel.The inside has been painted to resemble the green anti corrosion primer of real aircraft. I found a company called CROWN PAINTS here in England make a colour called Chelsea Green, a good enough mach to my eyes. At less than

Thank you for explanation.I may have a look for building this on my own too, would be a nice addition.But, not a lot of free time these days, even to fly...It's been a couple of month i saw your website not moved, did you get further in installing the MIP on a frame ?(i see you have splited your LCD screen... wow that's the kind of stuff i am not able to do - by the way, for those like me, my solution also give very good results)