Your Personal Flight Simulator

Well, it looks like I am just about ready for Maker Faire this week.  The sim is looking good, the electronics are done and working and I can sit in it comfortably.  Might add a screen for a PFD and some other extra goodies, but otherwise all set.  Who wants one?

I've created a standalone station for the sim just to see how the parts will lay out and what works for seating.  I find this is ok, but unless your chair is cranked up pretty high, the panel's top needs to be around shoulder height, otherwise you are constantly looking up at the screen.

As I am rebuilding my GoKart Tank, I will likely recycle that chassis for the sim.

I thought some more about it and I figured I'd re-use some of my old server rack rails. After I virtualized most of my servers, and brought all the hardware home from the CoLo I ended up with a ton of very reliable physical servers and even more rack hardware, not the least of which is some 12 sets of sliding rails, which, if you ask me, are screaming to be used. I thought I could make my simulator rig 'foldable' which will please the family because it can be folded up and stood on its side out of the way. I would use 2 to 4 rails (1 to 2 pairs) of the lockable sliding rails. Here's a sketch, tell me what you think:

Here's my thinking for the frame. The obvious bit in the middle is where the panel would go. I haven't depicted mounts for the side monitors here, but that's easily done with vertical risers on each side.

I've put together a platform, but I need to go visit Home Depot to see what they have in stock (I don't like waiting) and gather the parts I need based on my drawings. Stay tuned....

I have been recovering LCDs from old or dead laptops for some time. Here is one of them. I have built 4 of these so far of different sizes. I 3D Print these very light enclosures that I also support with acrylic sheet. 3 or 4 of these can be mounted on my simulator frame to make for a very lightweight display platform. I plan to use an enclosure that abuts each LCD to its neighbor to make it look like the view out of the windshield.

Here is the front of the 'monitor':

I configured this beast with everything I had and kept tweaking it until I had a working system. And of course, it works and works well. But it's mounted to my desk....

As you can see I have yolk, pedals, single engine throttle quadrant, a 6-pack, radio, transponder, annunciator, all the goodies. You can also see the computer at bottom left. Can you see how it has hijacked my desk? This thing is also running off my old TV using a DVI input. What you don't see are the 3 powered USB hubs behind the panel. Next step, get the monitors together....

One day, I took a plane up to practice some approaches. I knew I was rusty and I had an instructor on board. Even though I am an instructor myself, I knew I needed the practice to be proficient. That day was an especially bad day. I could not conduct any approach as well as I liked and while it is easy to chalk it up to rust, it really bothered me. I went home and promptly brought back to life a project I had been slowly working on...

I had a few computers left over from other projects. I immediately proceeded to cannibalize them for parts and in the end assembled a monster with enough power to run both FSX and XPlane reliably.

I started this project as a simulator based on the fuselage of my homebuilt airplane. After that was done, I showcased it the NoVA Mini Maker Faire and it was a hit. I then ran into a space issue and ended up dismantling it. I donated the computer I had built for it and also gave the fuselage to a friend of mine for his project. I did keep the idea alive though....