Panel Controls for VR

[-Stark- 3]

When playing various flying games I currently sit at my desk with the various peripherals scattered about. The key is I always have had my keyboard and mouse within reach.  I use the mouse all the time to click on anything inside the game because I find the hand controllers (G2 Reverb) awkward to use. I've tried to force myself to use them but I feel pointing the little lasers at the panel bizarre, and I can do it with a mouse click about 5x faster, easier.

Here's the new challenge and why I'm looking for an alternative. I'm a pilot and am planning on working on my Rotary add on for fun.  I typically don't feel manipulation of my various joysticks, yokes, etc translate well to real flying but I've heard good things about the Pro Flight Trainer Puma X on establishing some muscle memory...  so I bought one.  I can't cram this thing under my desk so this means I'm going to buy a Racer/Flight Sim chair that I can use as a dedicated flight sim set up.  However it's not going to be in front of my desk anymore so I need a method to click those various cockpit things.

I've Googled around and some people use a trackball mouse so that might be an option.  However I wanted to just see what other folks have been using in lieu of a full size keyboard, normal mouse setup.

[Flyfox 114]

I started using voice commands some time ago and in the meantime I can control a lot of functions in the cockpit by voice. Even clicking buttons is easy; I have defined voice commands for left and right mouse click. Entering letters or numbers (e.g. route, destination, transponder code etc.) is also quite convenient. The little program Voice Attack makes it possible!

Besides, in addition to the HOTAS and pedals I still use the mouse for some rare functions.

[-Stark- 3]

That's interesting, so you can use voice commands to program up an FMS or GTN nav device?  I think I still need to get something like a Trackball mouse by my side.  I'm going to order a few and test them out.

[-Stark- 3]

Here's what I ended up with and I think it works really well.

I took a set of  PFT Puma controls and connected them to an Open Wheeler racing/flight sim seat.  The connection was done using the PUMA 'seat blocker' connecting it to the Gen 3 Seat frame with about $3 in hardware. The aluminum angles shown in picture are there to restrict lateral movement.

The Open Wheeler set up has a ton of options to connect to the frame.  I went with the HOTAS Configuration #2, which will allow me to put a throttle off the left side at some point when I want to play with fixed wing planes.  For the right side I mounted the mousepad option that the Amazon seller 'Team HomeRacer' suggested (and provided for free).

As an MSFS 2020 VR set up this is working out great.  I have the two additional trackball buttons mapped to 'centering VR' view and 'pausing' (which opens up the game menu).  I mapped one of the collective buttons to the in game menu so I can click on what I need there too.  In the end this achieves the no keyboard setup I was going for.

I did however buy an addon called 'Sky4Sim NG'.  This has some mapping and weather functionality, but I mainly wanted it to view PDFs in VR.  This adds to the ability of this being used as a VFR procedural trainer.  I don't do any IFR procedural work in VR, I typically do that just sitting in front of my monitor and use my actual Ipad EFB for those things.  If someone wanted to do that in VR they would probably use some of the Navigraph mods I assume.