DEChengst

Another long day of work on the cockpit: Inner side of the left console and throttle mount. Four cardboard prototypes and the final custom stick mount. Finally something to play with. First cover plates have been installed today as well. Time to hop in! Nope, my legs won't win a beauty contest :(

Some more work done today: Created the lower part of the dashboard and testing out what the custom mounting plate for the stick should be like. Next step will be to create the inner support beam for the side panels. @jerda: No beer involved. Don't want to get a fine for FUI.

Your lolwut? moment for today: O1aH2-MhEko

I can only compare them to my old TM Elite pedals. The Saitek pedals are quite smooth and I can give much smaller control inputs than with the TM ones. I really love the toebrakes too, no more need to reach for the keyboard during taxiing.

Finally some more building done: Mounted the rudder pedals. Raised and narrowed the stick mount, so I'll have to make a custom mounting plate out of plywood for that.

Found some Mig-31 cockpit images on the net and I decided to try to make a panorama out of them. Has a few stichting errors in it, but I still think it looks nice. http://paranoid.dechengst.nl/mig31/Mig-31%20cockpit%20panorama.jpg (4.7 MB)

Thanks. That's really a neat way to extend the stick. When I was asked if I would extend the stick my first thought was to extend the stick itself. Using a CNC machine to create such a piece is not an option for me. I'm not sure though I'm going to use your suggestion. Yesterday I noticed that the frame piece that holds the Warthog base is too wide to get to my old rudder pedals comfortably. I've already designed a new frame piece with custom mounting plate that would be narrower and raise the stick as well. I'll take the decision between your and my solution as soon as I get a set of decent rudder pedals. I'll probaly get the new Saitek Combat pedals, so the build is on hold for a few weeks. I plan on boxing it up with plywood. Both for looks and indeed for holding the legs together.

I know I can remove the base plate, but to be honest I really have two left hands, so I need to keep things simple. For the moment I'll just keep it as it is.

It's okay. To mount it higher I would have needed to mount it further forward. Didn't like the feel of that, so where I mounted it is a bit of a compromise. Not at the moment. Don't have the skills and equipment to make such a thing. I may buy a ready made extension if one were to appear on the market.

Could find only one shop over here in Rotterdam that is selling the BSW threaded bolts I need for my project. They asked EUR 40 (lolwut?) for them. I ended up ordering them at a UK based webshop. Total was just shy of seven quid including shipping. Ordered them last Friday and yesterday I found them in the mailbox. Warthog base attached to the frame. Underside of the frame with the bottom cushion of the chair attached. One of the bolts didn't want to go in all the way, but it seems secure enough. I used six PVC braces for some added stability. Standing up on it's legs with the chair and stick bolted in place. Another view of the cockpit. The back cushion is still a bit dirty from all the sawdust. Next step will be to mount the throttle and make the outer frame pieces that will hold the side panels.

Why fly under a bridge when you can go through a bridge: Got halfway through and than it suddenly turned out the bridge was too narrow so I got stuck. Not even a scratch on the paint though.

If you make the stick work with the Cougar it should work with the Warthog as well. From the Warthog manual:

Looks like a Frex setup to me. According to their website they use: "Hi-grade anodized solid aluminum alloy"

Bottom is made from wood and doesn't look like it's very fit to make holes that would hold other bolts. Also I made to frame to fit to the screwholes that are already in the bottom of the seat. Original mounting plate broke, that's why I decided to recycle the chair for my cockpit build. I guess I need to start the hunt for the bolts. At least they're available online, just need to find a place that sells and ships them for a decent price. Found one webshop that sells them, with a nice shipping rate of 20 quid for 10 bolts. That most certainly goes into the zark off category.

Just ran into the first problem. Went to the hardware store to get some long bolts to bolt the old office chair to the frame. Turned out the bolts for the chair use a non-metric thread and the guy in the store told me they would be hard to find over here. Wikipedia convinced me I need 1/4 inch BSW threaded, 3 inch long bolts. I'll need to find a shop here in Rotterdam that sells them or order them online somewhere. Once I can bolt the chair to the frame I'll extend the frame so it can hold the HOTAS.

Standard 40 mm pipe with 3 mm wall thickness. Didn't fix the HOTAS yet, but I'll be making a seperate piece for it so it shouldn't be a problem.

The adapter I posted works fine if you set the mode switch to "2". Windows 7 sees it as a "4-axis, 4-button joystick w/view finder". To use the pedals in a sim use the "Z Rotation" axis. Make sure you don't have any of the other axis mapped. It's a little bit jittery, but I guess that's just the crappy pots TM uses. Also the pedals I uses are over 10 years old.

Not yet, I'll have to look into that. I may go for Opencockpits as they're being sold by a shop here in the Netherlands, which would ease support if needed.

Works for me using this adapter: http://www.manhattan-products.com/en-US/products/710-usb-game-port-adapter

I'm in my first week of a four week vacation so I decided to start my first cockpit build. I'm really making it all up as I build, so I have no idea what the end product will look like. My goal is to have at least the most important switches and the MFDs. I don't care too much about looks so this will be very much a functional build. I decided on PVC pipe as a construction material as it's easy to work with and quite affordable. First part build. This is the piece that will hold the chair. I'm not sure yet how to drill the holes for the bolts holding the chair. I don't have a column drill but still need to make sure they're very straight. Cockpit baseframe standing on it's legs seen from behind. I've also added the inner side of the piece that will hold the panels in place. Same piece, but now with the bottom cushion of the seat on it. Still haven't bolted it to the frame. Today I went shopping for a photocamera. Stumbled across some box. No idea what was in the box but box looked great so I decided to buy it. It turned out that the box contained a stick and throttle. Maybe I can uses this for my simpit ? Next step will be to fix the stick and throttle to the frame. More later.

Getting out the unconventional way after landing too fast.

Look at it from the bright side. Getting LockOn for free may get them to buy Flaming Cliffs :)

In general planned time until release +50% is a good guestimate. So expect a game that should be released in a year being released in a year and a half.

Great vid :)

When it's finished :P