Since there will be many on here who take this much more seriouly than I do (e.g. cockpit builders, who REALLY know what they're doing), I just wanted to get some feedback as to whether my assumptions and methods below are sound.

There is much talk on forums such as this of "realism".  However, a realistic sense of speed and scale will never be achieved if actual FOV is not matched to sim FOV.  Large screens make this, just about, practically possible.  Doing what I've done (below), I am very happy with the result.

My eyepoint is currently 103 cm from my 50" TV, which has a width of 109 cm.

Basic trig tells me that my horizontal FOV is 56 deg.

I loaded up a plane on a runway.  Yawed it (w/ a/c moving slowly as possible*) so that a distant object lined up with one edge of the screen,  I then yawed again so that it lined up with the other edge of the screen.  I then adjusted zoom so that this yaw resulted in a 56 deg change on the HSI.  For me this results in a zoom of 75.

This results in a cockpit panel that "seems" huge, but is mathematically correct, considering the panel should be nearer to me in reality than the screen is.

*Slewing would've been better, but is it possible to slew while in the cockpit?  I couldn't find a way to do so.

EDIT:  Zoom seems to relate to vertical FOV.  Is there a "formula" to get the vertical FOV from the zoom number?

 

Edited August 29, 20205 yr by Hippo

I did some experiments but position my eye point at certain places on an airport and seeing what zoom level was needed to have a build fill the screen (for which I would take measurement in Google Earth). I did about half a dozen. My estimate is that 0 zoom is 135 deg FOV, and 100 zoom is 15 deg FOV horizontally (for a 16:9 display). But the data a bit scattered so it may not be linear.

My take on the FoV. 

I focused on 3 displays, but it's applicable to one display as well. Suggestion: to maximize FoV place the display as close as possible to your eye.