Hello and thank you for any assistance you can provide.  I am a pilot IRL and am considering a home FAA approved BATD flight simulator for maintaining IFR currency.  I am not all that familiar with gaming or computers.  Ideally I'd like to have a home sim that is exactly or close to my plane:  Garmin G3X for PFD, Garmin 500 autopilot, and Garmin 750Xi for GPS, all in a C172.  I've reached out directly to Gleim and Xplane, they both seemed helpful as mud as to the ability to get a plane set up this way.  

Can anyone offer advice on the feasibility and methods of doing this?

What products to use?  What hardware/software/vendors?

Or, am I barking up the wrong tree?

Woof!  Welcome to the AVSIM forums! 😀 I'm hoping you are not barking up the wrong tree!  Looks loke the Garmin G3x is available, as an addon for MSFS 2020, so you may be in luck.

Generally, to have FAA approval as a BATD, a specific hardware config and a specific software version have to be approved together.  I doubt you can build your own and still meet the BATD approval requirements...all I've ever seen were bundled hardware+software packages, and because of the certification process, they tend to be quite expensive.

You might try looking at the Elite or Precision Flight Controls websites.

2 hours ago, longtallsally said:

Can anyone offer advice on the feasibility and methods of doing this?

Depending on how much effort you want to put into this, you may well be able to build a custom rig on either an XPlane or P3D base.  Suggest asking your question in both the XPlane and P3D forums for ideas.

If IFR currency is the key requirement, you may be able to find a simpler solution, however, by using MSFS which is the newest microsoft platform.

The exact combination of airplane and avionics is tricky to find, but if avionics are key and you are willing to compromise on airplane, I would suggest looking at something like the MSFS RV14 + TDS GTN750NXi.  Attached is a screenshot of the cockpit... would that work for you?

Or a more complex plane.. the C414..

 

First up, and as I'm sure you are aware, an approved system for your home is quite pricey (reckon on somewhere around 7,000 Dollars). as an example, this sort of thing is what you'd be looking at.

Now, with that said, that's a system where you can actually log time, so in a sense when comparing it to the cost of flying around in the real thing, it then looks a lot more affordable. However, if you just want to remain proficient from a personal standpoint, as opposed to maintaining proficiency in an official capacity, then things can potentially be a lot less pricey. Note for example, that the system I put a link to, uses Lockheed Martin's Prepar3D simulator software (aka P3D). Lots of people here on Avsim have this simulator, so you are in the right place for learning stuff about that. As you may or may not be aware, P3D is essentially a 'souped up' version of Microsoft Flight Simulator X (aka FSX). This is because Microsoft sold a licence to Lockheed Martin for the base software that FSX uses, which is called the Enterprise Simulator Platform (aka ESP). What this means, is that FSX was sold as entertainment software (i.e. a flying game), largely so that Microsoft could limit its liability (i.e. not get sued if someone killed themselves by learning to fly in FSX, then going in a real aeroplane and having an accident). Lockheed Martin on the other hand, market P3D as a training tool. FSX is basically the same flight sim as P3D, the difference is more to do with that liability.

Now, what that tells you, is that home entertainment flight simulators these days, are at a level where they really can be much more than just a home entertainment flying game, and that's true of all of the big ones that are out there (XPlane, P3D, MSFS 2020 etc), they just aren't generally touted as being for real world training in order to limit liability.

As you are probably also aware, full-on Level D flight simulators of the type that airlines use are very expensive (tens of millions), but most of that cost is down to two things: First, they have to be a realistic replica of the real cockpit, and second, all of the controls and the display systems have to function within a very close tolerance of the real thing in terms of reaction times, replication of the real thing and so on. In addition to this, they have to have realistic sounds, wrap around displays and an instructor station, so that's why they cost millions. But that's not true with an IFR simulator; basically all those have to do is replicate a few instrument displays realistically, and most entertainment home flight sims such as FSX etc, are perfectly capable of doing that. What is also true of flight sims such as FSX, is that because most people play with them on a basic PC, the lack of real world 'seat of the pants' feeling means that one is usually forced into visually picking up that feedback from the instruments. The upshot of this is that many people who fly home flight sims, are actually quite savvy on instruments, but perhaps less able with stick and rudder skills which would translate to the real world. This alone tells us that most home-based PC flight sims are actually not bad instrument flying practice tools if one is inclined to use them for that purpose.

The point of all this is that, if you just want to maintain your own familiarity with IFR technique and are not too bothered about actually logging the time officially, then a home flight sim will certainly do the job, which would mean any half decent gaming PC (reckon on perhaps 800 Dollars or so), plus a copy of FSX/P3D/XPlane, or even the newest Microsoft flight sim (MSFS 2020), (fairly negligible cost for the flight sim itself, perhaps 50 Dollars tops) would get you up and running. You might then want to get a decent throttle and yoke controller for it (anywhere from about 150 Dollars up to serious money). But that means for simply practicing stuff but not logging it, you'd be in business for about a grand or so.

The advantage of P3D, and probably one of the reasons why it is the base software for that pro training system, is that since it's been around for years, you can pretty much name any aeroplane you like and the chances are there will be a high fidelity add-on for the sim featuring that exact aeroplane (for a decent preview of some of the better ones, take a look at the add-on aeroplanes from A2A Simulations, but they are by no means the only worthy source of stuff).

Essentially, home-based flight simulators have for a very long time been at the point where, even if someone had never flown a real aeroplane at all, but could manage to get 'up, around and back down' in one piece in a flight sim, the chances are they could probably do so in real life too. But the real strength of these sims is the way they can replicate the instrumentation, because in many cases (particularly in regards to GPS systems, PFDs, autopilots and the like), they are actually running exactly the same software as the real things do, or something very similar to it.

So the choice you probably have to think about is, do you want to log the practice time officially, or do you just want to practice it for yourself. The choice you make will determine how much you'll have to spend.

 

Edited April 14, 20224 yr by Chock

3 hours ago, Chock said:

The advantage of P3D, and probably one of the reasons why it is the base software for that pro training system, is that since it's been around for years, you can pretty much name any aeroplane you like and the chances are there will be a high fidelity add-on for the sim featuring that exact aeroplane

I also thought of P3D, but have not seen a GTN750 / G3X combination in a C172.. anyone? 😉