If you travel back in time, you can't do anything to change the future, because you're actions are already taken into account. As Daniel Faraday puts it in LOST, "whatever happened, happened."

He, he. Funny. For some reason the text of my question did not appear in my post. It looks like I was soliciting ideas - any ideas about anything. That could be an interesting post though. I actually wanted to solicit suggestions regarding what set up would work best in an homemade cockpit I plan to set up. Here

I've seen photos of some really well done home rigs where a lot of fabrication has resulted in a first class representation of a B737 or airbus flight deck, but the costs have been daunting at best, and the results are somewhat limiting. Firstly, with a rig like that you are limited to flying only the one bird, and secondly you are missing out on some of the best VC artwork seen in flight simulation to date.I'm inclined to go with a rig such as the one pictured below because I like to fly old WWII war birds as much as the latest glass cockpit creations you get from Captain Sim or PMDG. It's a whole lot cheaper than a fully kitted flight deck, and a lot more versitile.I'm happier with patching my four monitors directly into dual GTX 280 graphics cards because I can get the surround view you see pictured which you can't really get with the TH2Go. With the TH2Go you get a really wide normal view and a field of view which kinda defeats the purpose of having three widescreen monitors. When you patch your monitors directly into the cards you open up new VC views from the Views menu and drag them into position where they can be rotated into alignment. And with FSX you can now asign a key press which will allow you to link your VC views so that they will all pan together when you look around.The options available now are mind boggling, so you will have a lot to think about. Most importantly you will want to buy the fastest chip you can afford, and even the best Core i7s are challenged by drawing 3D displays which cover three or four widescreen monitors.Good luck with your deliberations.

"And with FSX you can now asign a key press which will allow you to link your VC views so that they will all pan together when you look around."Wow, I didn't know that. Can you eleborate on this point (i.e. How would I go about doing that with several cards and sereral monitors instead of the Matrox TH2Go). You make some good points and gave me much to think about. Thanks.Gianluca

One of the the essential things in setting up multi views with multi monitors is that each monitor is positioned to be square to the pilot's eyes. That's both horizontally and vertically. If you don't do this, the horizon will seem to twist and become three pieces when the plane rolls.The reason is that when a mon is viewed from an angle, it will appear to be narrower than actual. For example, a diagonal line from corner to corner will get progressively steeper as your eyes move to the side & away from being square to the centre point of the mon. This is why a visitor, sitting beside you, will see a very distorted FS view with the runway angling off to the side etc. (Visitors probably think simmers are a bit crazy since we seem to like these weird views of the world!) The attached chart illustrates the FS views and how monitors would be placed. The precise angles for secondary mons depends on monitor widths and distance of eyes to monitors. Generally, monitors will be not far removed from 45

Can you eleborate on this point (i.e. How would I go about doing that with several cards and sereral monitors instead of the Matrox TH2Go).

I've heard that you can now get motherboard support for three graphics cards in an SLI configuration, and since each card will have two output ports you can connect up to six monitors directly into your cards. Two cards gives me enough to play with and I plug four monitors into the output ports of two cards. In spite of talk about FSX being CPU dependant I find that two cards significantly improves performance, and you are going to need all the help you can get because drawing three VC views is going to cost you FPS.Getting your desktop spread across three or four monitors can be done from the display dialogue in Windows Control Panel, but you will have to reboot your machine before the new config will take effect.To get your monitors to pan together go to the Settings/Controls/Buttons/Keys dialogue and in the Views event category you'll find an entry called View - link all (toggle). Simply assign a keypress for this event, load up your sim, drag and rotate your views into position, and hit the keypress.I've found that if you save a flight with your views set up like this FSX will remember the configuration and position your views when you return to the flight. It won't remember view size or rotation so you'll have to do this manually.Good luck.