FlightSim Hardware

FLYIT is not a company I’ve heard of before, but looking at the range of flight simulator hardware they have available, it looks like they’ve been around for a while.

They specialise in flight training simulators, but they do have one General Aviation setup that may be of interest to home simmers:

The FLYIT personal simulator is so real and fidelity so high that significant learning takes place. Learn, totally understand and practice concepts of maneuvers, navigation and procedures, even cockpit resource management. Then time in the real aircraft is quality training time, perfecting and polishing flying skills. Soon FAA will allow a portion of flight time required for the instrument rating to be logged as flight time. Skills perfected on the FLYIT panel can reduce time required to take your private check ride. National average is around 70 hours, with the FLYIT control panel you will be closer to the minimum of 40 hours and you will be a better pilot.

They’re also working on a twin engine panel, so it may be worth keeping an eye on their site if that’s something you’ve been looking for.

Simkits has released a Cabinet and Glareshield unit for simulator cockpit builders:

The TRC472 Cabinet and Glareshield is a combination of the Glareshield which is vacuum formed from 5 mm., leatherprint, non flammable black ABS plastics in combination with an aluminium frame consisting of 3 mm. thick aluminium panels and 1 mm. thick bended, white powdercoated panels to form the full cabinet.

The panel can be easily mounted into this cabinet and fits exactly.

It comes with a detachable back plate with mounting slots which hold the back panel mounting system. It can be opened any time and gives full access to all instruments. It has a provision to mount a pedestal Wet Compass on top (the compass is not included).

It is the latest development in cabinet building and has the looks and feels of an original aicraft fuselage.

The new Cessna style Yoke system fits exactly into this cabinet.

You can find out more over on the Simkit’s web site.

Ride The Wave sl is seeking software and mechanical engineers with Motion Simulator experience.

Ride The Wave sl, a cutting edge new company, backed by Advent Global venture Capitalists, are developing mass production low cost Motion Simulators for Home and Public Access use. They seek to appoint software and mechanical engineers. Applicants must have extensive experience in the field. Whereas the company is registered in Spain, development work is being
carried out in the UK.

I can’t reveal any more at this stage, but if you’re interested. please contact me via the Contact Form and I’ll pass your details on.

The FlightSim Pilot Shop are now shipping a number of products by Flightsim Consoles that will be useful to anyone carrying out a home-cockpit project.

Center Console

The Center Console is for use between pilot seats to be utilized for different functions, such as keyboard and/or mouse placement, etc., on the top of the console.

The console also has a compartment accessible from the front for storage of books, manuals, and other items used during flight simulation sessions.

Pedestal Console

The Flightsim Consoles Pedestal is perfect for the virtual pilot who:

#1) …flies a variety of aircraft. This console is a snap to move for proper Pilot-in-Command (PIC) view alignment with the active aircraft flight instruments. Simply adjust the entire Pedestal Console as much or as little as needed in a few seconds, instead of loosening the knobs of the yoke or stick, re-aligning the controller for proper flight instrument view position, re-tightening the knobs, then re-aligning the rudder pedals with the yoke.

A huge benefit of the Pedestal Console is that it keeps the rudder pedals from slipping across the floor, out of reach or grossly mis-aligned. When rudder pedals do slip away, it is always at the worst possible moment, such as when one is just coming over the fence and is about to touch down. One must either fight for control and quite possibly botch the landing, or have to hit pause, re-align and then continue on.

#2) …has other responsibilities to attend to with the computer. As much as we would all like to have a computer dedicated solely to our flight simulator, this is not always practical. With the Pedestal Console, it takes just a couple of seconds to disconnect your USB cables and move the entire unit out of the way. When ready to fly again, it takes only a second or two to re-position the unit, re-plug the USBs, and off you go.

Features of the Flighsim Consoles’ Pedestal: Adjustable in height to better fit all body types and for proper alignment with different desk heights Accepts all major flight controllers The Flightsim Consoles wing accessory (see below) can be attached in seconds for even greater PIC opportunities.

Constructed of solid core material with a durable black laminate. Also available in a variety of custom solid woods or other colors upon request.

Master Console

The Flightsim Consoles Master Console is a groundbreaking design that allows virtual pilots the ultimate in flightdeck organization and Pilot-in-Command (PIC) and Co-Pilot (CoP) flexibility.

Attractive & Versatile - Are two of the best words that can be used to describe this new product.

Lower Deck

This handsome and thoughtfully designed console will facilitate many different PIC configurations, including: Dual side-by-side yokes as used by many general aviation, business prop / jet aircraft. Dual side-by-side sticks utilized by some of the newer general aviation aircraft such as the Diamond as well as the Cessna T-37 jet. Left seat-left-stick/center-throttle as utilized by Cirrus, Columbia and many of the new Very Light Jets (VLJs) as well as the Airbus series. Single seat-right-stick/left-throttle as designed into the F-16 Fighting Falcon. Single seat-center-stick/left-throttle as used by Aeronca Champ, Piper Cub, Diamond and other general aviation aircraft, most ultralights and many military fighter jets. Left seat-center-stick/center-throttle as flown by the C-17 Globemaster pilots. Right seat-center-stick/center-throttle as flown in the Siai Marchetti SF-260 and the C-17 Globemaster co-pilot. Right seat-yoke/center throttle for most co-pilot applications such as the Boeing 7 series. Right seat-right-stick/center throttle for the co-pilot position of Cirrus, Columbia, and many of the new Very Light Jets (VLJs) as well as the Airbus series. Right or left seat-center-stick/left collective for helicopter pilots.

Upper deck

In addition to being adjustable up and down to allow different sized lower level monitors, the upper level deck easily slides right and left for proper view alignment with either the left seat or the right seat flight instrumentation alignment, depending on which side of the cockpit the flying is being conducted from.

Pedestal Wing

The Wing Accessory is the perfect add-on for the Pedestal Console, for the virtual pilot who flies different aircraft which require a variety of flight controller setups. The WING attaches to the PEDESTAL Console in seconds.
For example, the Cirrus, Columbia and many of the new Very Light Jets (VLJs) have a left side stick. Aircraft such as the F-16 Fighting Falcon have a rightside stick and a left side throttle while the Aeronca Champ, Piper Cub, Diamond and other general aviation aircraft and most military fighter jets have a center stick and left throttle. Additionally, the C-17 Globemaster pilot flies with a left center stick and center throttle. An additional flightdeck option for the Wing is to attach two yokes or two stick for dual flying.

The Flightsim Consoles Pedestal Wing accessory: Accepts all major flight controllers.

Tags: flightsim consoles

Well, I finally bit the bullet and I’m now a fully paid up member of the Mac club, with my recent purchase of a 17″ Macbook Pro

So, what made me do it? A number of things:

• I’ve become increasingly disenchanted with Windows - I seemed to spend more time fixing issues and trying to tweak it for optimum performance than actually using it
• Bootcamp - this was fully released with OSX (the Mac operating system) 10.5 Leopard and it allows you to dual boot the Mac. A friend of mine who owns an iMac set up a dual-boot with Windows XP and had terrific results with Flight Simulator 9. This means I have the best of both worlds - the reliability and simplicity of the Mac for normal day-to-day use (and for X-Plane) and Windows for Microsoft’s sims
• It looks absolutely beautiful!

I was in the market for a new laptop anyway and I would’ve paid what I paid for the Macbook Pro for a “Windows” laptop in any case, so there was no additonal cost. I was apprehensive, of course, after more years than I care to remember almost exclusively on Windows, but, having used it for a few days, I’ll join all the other converts in pronouncing that I wish I’d made the move earlier.

I won’t go into all the pros and cons of Windows -v- Macs, but will concentrate on the sim experience. I installed Vista Home Premium via Bootcamp. The OSX Leopard DVD comes with all the drivers required for Vista, so it was simply a case of installing the OS, then running the drivers setup and I was ready to go. I installed Flight Simulator X, followed by Service Pack 1. I then installed X-Graphics and Active Sky X, as I love the way they enhance the sim. I then fired up the sim, running at the maximum 1680 x 1050 resolution, set all graphics settings to Ultra High except for Traffic (which I set to Medium Low) and set off for a flight. I was delighted to find I’m hitting frame rates of 50+ but, more importantly, it’s as smooth as silk - absolutely no stuttering, no blurries, just a beautifully running simulator

I’ve tried a number of add-ons (RealAir’s SF260 and Scout amongst them) and performance doesn’t seem to be affected at all. I’m thoroughly delighted with the results.

Another benefit of the dual-boot setup is that I can keep the Vista partition exclusively for flight simulator use. It won’t get cluttered up with all the other applications I’d normally have installed, so I can keep the installation “clean”.

Just for info, here’s the relevant specs of the machine:

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz ( Dual-Core )
• Cache Memory: 4 MB - L2 Cache
• RAM: 2 GB (installed) / 4 GB (max) - DDR II SDRAM - 667 MHz - PC2-5300 ( 2 x 1 GB )
• Hard Drive: 160 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400 rpm
• Optical Storage: DVD±RW (±R DL) - integrated
• Display: 17″ TFT active matrix 1680 x 1050 ( WSXGA+ )
• Graphics Controller: NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT - 256 MB

I’m also using a 2Gb USB pen drive for ReadyBoost in Vista, which seems to improve performance and I have FSX installed to a USB hard drive. I shall post some more results after I’ve used it a while longer.

Tags: macbook pro