• Bounce around in your chair on Takeoff,
  

 

 

god, you made my day for a hole year with that one hahahha

It depends on what You want to achieve, what aircraft You fly. For a GA a nice Yoke and throttles plus RP would be nice. For a transport plane, hardware FMC and AFCS would be nice. Buttkicker is good for all planes (it kicks Your butt in prop all the time, in Jet when rolling down the runway, changing configuration). Headset for ATC is a nice addition... TrackIR is a must in VFR (looking for the traffic and landmarks) and inside the complex cockpits. Big screen TV, or even better, triple monitors is also very nice, especially, if You have TrackIR.

From software side in FSX: MCE, Accu-Feel, EZCA, AS2012, REX-E, good scenery for VFR and decent airport for IFR....

There is plenty of stuff to go by.

Getting a bigger screen, a good quality yoke, and rudder pedals, a great PC, good add-ons, good soundsystem, Buttkicker...

 

I'm not going much further than that. People who actually dress up like a pilot is beyond the point where I say "Get a life!". It's great that we love airplanes and simulation, cuz so do I, but don't go too far in it! Hobbies can be dangerous! :LMAO: Wait until you are starting to forget what the reality is! :LMAO:

It definatly depends on your budget. I think for the best setup budget permitting you buy your kit in parts and build it up.

 

Let's say you decide to go all out this Christmas (assuming you have a decent system, otherwise that comes first). I would recommend.

 

Basic Yoke and throttle combo

Headset or microphone and speakers

EZDock/TrackIR (or both)

FS2crew and the NGX

 

And then you could probably save up and as many others have suggested buy VRinsight and more specific equipment to the 737 such as a custom throttle quadrant or MIP panels and the overhead.

Really, I think some of these things need to be broken into several subtopics. For most immersive (and realistic aircraft, I think PMDG and RealAir. I also have a Carenado (though their documentation is very sparse.) There may be others.

@OP -

 

> "No matter the realism, we still have to click the mouse to flip switches, and most of us sit in an office chair while doing this."

 

Of course. Going back to the beginnings of flight sims (I was there), we had to use the keyboard to operate throttle, ailerons, elevators, you name it. Very quickly it became obvious that a simple joystick, especially one with a throttle control as well, yielded 1000% improvement. Gradually, things improved beyond that....

 

These days, you can get your hands on some amazingly good hardware — depending only on how much money you have to spend. I never have to touch keyboard or mouse once my simulated flight has begun, and that's the objective I have aimed for (but it took me a while). We all have to find our own way to achieve our aims, of course.

 

The cheapest route is probably to use some proprietary encoder boards and your own swirches and axes along with LINDA: beyond that, well, your pocketbook sets the limits (especially if you are serious about adding motion into the mix). :Shocked:

 

Good luck,

 

Brian

I never have to touch keyboard or mouse once my simulated flight has begun, and that's the objective

 

There are some functions of the JS41 that I haven't been able to program to my hardware (yet). Engine Icing, and Prop Synch, Go Around button, for example. I'm still very green with LUA. Do you use the buttons in the VC or have you figured out a way to program those?

 

Thing is, in the real airplane, those buttons are fairly easily accessable. But in the sim...without it programmed to something, they can be a little dangerous. I could not possibly imagine looking down to click a Go Around button with a mouse, completely the opposite experience of a real world pilot. It's not, necessarily a critical button, but, despite the fact that it's right where it is in the real airplane, it can't really be used in any practical way.

Hi Gregg!

 

You don't say whether or not you are using LINDA? If not you need the v1.3 JS41 module from here --

 

http://forum.avsim.n...ule-version-13/

 

... and of course v1.11 of LINDA itself (herself??) from here --

 

http://fs-linda.com/...LINDA-v1.11.zip

 

Unfortunately I haven't flown my JS41 for some time (I've been concentrating on the NGX) so I can't comment from experience. However, I'm sure that you'll find that most functions are already documented for you within the code: simply use LINDA to allocate the functions you need to a button that you can find easily whilst your eyes are elsewhere. Should you need a function that isn't already provided, use LINDA's Tracer tool to establish it for yourself.

 

LINDA comes with its own manual, but if you would like a more extended explanation (which also includes a few comments about designing your own control layout) then you can download one from here --

 

http://forum.avsim.n...etailed-manual/

 

I assume since you're already using Lua that you have the licensed version of FSUIPC, which provides the Lua interface for LINDA and others.

 

Here's an example of part of LINDA's button allocation pages that I use with the NGX (which enjoys the benefit of 700 different functions that can be allocated using LINDA, some of which you see here):

 

 

(If you find LINDA as essential as many of us do, please don't forget to donate to the authors — it's top-quality software).

 

I hope that helps,

 

Cheers,

 

Brian

You don't say whether or not you are using LINDA? If not you need the v1.3 JS41 module from here --

 

I do use Linda. Guess I left that off of my specs. I was always curious about where to find aircraft updates! Thanks for that!

 

I have it in my mind to get the NGX after I'm better at Instruments.