rocketeer

Rudder is definitely a must. I have a CH one, but the spacing is bit too close, and the pedals don't have enough resistance. I believe Saitek ones are spaced wider apart, and there is a knob to adjust the resistance. These are the two affordable ones in the market.

Triggerhappy, it'd be an honour to have you onboard. I think you have much more experience than us in pit building, with you CAD, resin moulding, opencockpit components etc. skills, i think you can act as our advisor! :smilewink: I'd PM you our MSN addresses.

Now you are way ahead of us in building the BS pit. Good job! Guess I'd have to 'steal' some of your excellent ideas.:D Thanks for sharing your work!

Hey Aeroscout, which part of the states are u in? You are welcome to join us! Both CAT101 and i plan to do the ka-50 pit. But we'd love to have any member onboard. It doesn't matter what pit you want to build, or have no intention to build one! As long as you enjoy discussing about the various aspects of pit building, like frame building, wiring, component testing, IO card selection/coding etc., welcome aboard! There is strength in numbers, and no one knows everything, and everyone knows something or has some ideas for others. It's an informal group. Independent of what you plan to build, we can talk about your/my panel, components etc.

We don't have big budget, and nothing outrageous planned (yet!). We're not pulling money together to share a pit. It is individual pit. We are just trying to share ideas and learn from each other to build our own pit, which may be just a few switches or a few panels, depends on the individual's buget, time availability, (spousal approval) etc. We're not trying to build a 100% replica of BS cockpit. Even if you don't plan to build something for BS, or you're not in the Bay Area, eg. you're in LA or Nevada. As long as you like to talk about pit building, and roughly around the same time zone with us, we'd like to hear from you. But anyone else further away is welcome to join us too, it's just that discussing in teamspeak will be more of a challenge if the time zone is too far apart at night.

Recently CAT 101 and I began discussing about pit building for BlackShark, talking about the panels, the switches, buttons, how they should work, how to build them etc. As both of us are located in North California, we are looking for others in CA to join the group. We hope to collaborate ideas, share sketches, learn from each other, chat through MSN, teamspeak etc. Of course this great forum is still a resource of inspiration and ideas for us. eg. Triggerhappy has been sharing his wonderful progress. But it'd be even better if we can meet up physically within decent driving distance, get together and talk about the various switches, buttons, dimension, layout etc. and show our stuff to each other and analyse the challenges as a group. Hope some of you will join us! :smilewink:

This thing looks so unreal. It's flawless, like it's made by some pro from a company. Amazing workmanship. :thumbup: You should join the aviationsimulationgroup. they are a bunch of pit builders that make sell professionally made parts. your stuff looks as perfect as theirs.

Welcome to the forum. And thanks for the link. Something to read about helos while we wait for BS' release.

Yeah I heard about the wonderful Sniper from Lockheed, supposedly better than the Litening pod, but it seems that the Litening is still more popular. Maybe because it has been around longer, or it's cheaper? Either one is fine with me. But DCS is not making A-10C anytime soon. Sigh.

Currently the A-10's IR Mav can only zoom up to 6X, compared to the SU-25T's Shkval up to 23X! I wonder how much magnification increase does the Litening II pod provide? And after DCS rolls out Black shark and moves on to the A-10A, I wonder if they'd include the litening pod since it can be used on the A-10A (I think). If they can do it that would be so cool, to be able to use FLIR, increased magnification, laser targeting, precision guided bombs etc. but I guess that is day dreaming.

I claim no credit for this. Peter Thomas is the man. His forum tag is bnepethomas. You can request him to send you the new f4glass for lomac exe, and the export.lua settings. For the third part F4glass itself it's standard. That's all to it. He's very helpful guy.

Just an update. Two weeks ago thanks to Mnemonic's Virtual Panel I got the russian instruments working on my second monitor. Here's how the Russian gauges look like in my instruments monitor (with a nice Flanker-like-blue background): Then I was told the US gauges in VP are not ready yet. Now thanks to Peter Thomas (who built a very impressive GA cockpit) he got the US gauges working for me in his F4Glass for lomac software. Here's how the US gauges (these are Falcon 4 gauges) look like for lomac: Not all the F4 gauges are done with development for lomac, but the essential ones above are, except for AoA. Now we have the wonderful russian gauges from Mnemonic, and the F4 US gauges from Peter Thomas, for those who appreciate having a second monitor for instruments, while keeping the primary monitor for main view or HUD view, like in FSX. Just thought for sharing the news for those who were like me looking for US gauges. It works for lock on 1.12.

Thanks for the update Matt, and thanks for letting me try the Black Shark at the expo. I've recently learned how to make a simple A-10 weapons panel with toggle switches and push buttons work for Lock On connected to a sim board software. Looking forward to LOBS' release so that I can build a simple cockpit for it. It's going to be a super impressive sim to rave to friends.

For those who are familiar with TB, I know it allows you to click on buttons, and can even work with Mnemonic's VP (just found out today), but if no one has created US gauages for it, it means that TB currently can't display US gauges right?

Thanks very much Mnemonic, for the link and the creation of VP. It's really impressive! :notworthy: I just tried it. It's so great to see instruments move in another monitor for the first time. I noticed that it's all russian gauges only. Any plans to make US gauges?

I have heard of the touch buddy, but what is mnemonics virtual panel? Is it just a generic term for a secondary monitor? I have seen touch buddy screenshots where various keys/commands can be pressed. Can it show instruments instead, like simmeters? cheers

Sorry if this has been discussed before but I searched the forum and FAQ and could not find anything. Is Black Shark going to support a secondary monitor like FSX where you can open another window to view say instruments, drag it to another monitor? I read that BS will support wide screen. I'm not talking about that, for a wide screen LCD monitor, or for left, center and right views combined like TH2GO. If it does natively I can build a pit with some switches and a monitor to show the TV monitor and the ABRIS system. The current solutions for Lock On is to use F4Glass for lomac or simmeters software for intruments view.

If you guys are handy with tools you can buy the original plan from Ken Hill for $15 at http://www.acesim.com/main.html. Total cost of material should be less than $500. Click 'Customer Completions' to see those who have built the simulators according to the plan with a bit of modification.

Forgot to mention, the chasis uses dumb bell weights to counter the player's weight. Since all of us have different weight, some kind of adjustment is required by the weights at the back near the seat. The package ships without the weights. I was told that we can get it cheap for a few bucks at Walmart. And the distance to the monitor is fixed, since the seat is fixed. But you can adjust the rudder plate for your legs' comfort.

Thanks for your info on SVMapper. However, my FDT boards don't show up as USB controller, even though it is run by USB. So SVMapper doesn't see it as USB device, hence I can't program any key presses. Today I received gteat news from FDT support that they have come up with a fix for their boards to work with any third party sims, and be limited to MS FS. If it really works then I can program my switches above for Lock On. But I have to wait for their testing and it'd be released as a new version next month. If the fix really works, I'd be able to add more switches and panels for Black Shark when it eventually comes out next year.

Thanks for the info, but this seems software seems to be specifically for IOCard only? The FDT boards also come with a software, for you to program the key presses. And I could see the letters typed in notepad automatically when I use the switches. But they don't work when I launch Lock On. I'm looking for an interfacing program that can bridge FDT to Lock On, if one exists. Like FS9 simmers use FSUIPC to talk to FS9 for complex functions beyond what the standard FS9 functions offer.

Last week I chanced upon this motion simulator demo in YouTube. They have several videos at their website, www.mydreamflyer.com. They won some award for it. I've been keen on having a motion simulator for years, and have been researching for something affordable. But the ones in the market are all very expensive, from $100K + for the high end ones, like $40k for mid range ones. The two more 'affordable' solutions are from Rock N Ride, and Force Dynamics. Both are still many thousands of $, although a recent google for rock n ride shows 999 Euros. Strange and big drop in price. Then SimCraft claims to be building one cheaper. I shared about this last year in this forum. I followed its progress patiently for 1.5 years. Finally around June this year they the product was ready but I was disappointed to see that it costs $9K to $14K, depending on your configuration. The cheapest way is to build one yourself, from Joyrider. I bought its plan years ago, but never build one as it seems a bit challenging for me, including taking apart the HOTAS and extending and rewiring it. So this simulator is based on the Joyrider plan, but improved on it. They have three versions: 1. Basic (chasis and Saitek HOTAS), 2. Elite (plus Saitek rudder pedals), 3. Pro (plus tri-monitor bracket). I spoke to them today and clarified a few things if I were to burn some savings to get one. The Elite version, which costs $400 more, is not just adding the rudder. They'd add the floor to hold the rudder, mount the rudder for you, and do some rewiring of the rudder. I don't know why the rewiring of the rudder is necessary. I said the rudder only costs around $120, which the high markup and this is their justification. As for the tri-monitor bracket, they received feedback from early customers, so now they've made it adjustable for different height and angles for each monitor's mount, to cater to the different heights of the players. The monitors can be mounted apart with gaps in between as in the picture or closed up side by side for a seamless view. Two interesting expansions they are doing R&D on are making it modular, to make it possible to 1. mount a yoke in replacement of the stick, for flying civilian aircrafts in MSFS. sweet! 2. mount a heli collective on the left. This is good news for us waiting for Black Shark (which I tried at the E for All Expo last month in LA, thanks Matt!) to come out next year. I am not sure if it will replace or be attached to the X52 throttle. While $2000+ is not dirt cheap, it is still the most affordable in the market so far, for those of us like me who can't figure out how to build one. It doesn't have hydraulics to justify the price, but it also mean less parts to maintain/upgrade. It'd be awesome having some simple motion (compared to no motion at all), to play Lock On and Black Shark, with three monitors and TrackIR and bass shakers. This will be a nice ($$$) Christmas gift for myself, if my wife doesn't kill me. More info here about the simulator from this site that I found: http://www.flightcontrolsimulator.com/site/1646834/page/45029 Just thought of sharing about this product. I have nothing to do with the company nor gain from it.

I bought Flight Deck Technology sim boards to build a Cessna cockpit months ago. They work for FSX. Now I want to make use the same boards for a cockpit for lock on. My toggle switches and push buttons work in notepad, showing the letters that I programmed as key presses. But they don't work when I run lomac. Has anyone used FDT boards before for non MSFS sims and made it work? I suspect Lock On suppresses the key presses. Maybe I need some interfacing program between the boards and LockOn. If FDT will only work for MSFS than I'd have to get another board like the Hagstrom KE72 to run for Lock On. This is what I built. Just something very simple. On the right are three GoFlight modules. On the left is an A-10 Weapons Control printout with a few switches and buttons. Any input is appreciated.

You are right. They are not really cockpit, more of a chair setup like you said. Most people will just DIY. Still, for those of us not handy with a tool, this is probably as "cockpit" like as it gets, having the basic stick and throttle at the side, and a place to put the yoke etc. Another approach-clamping the hotas, keyboard, mouse, speakers etc. to the office chair. This one is called commandcon. Man, these sim hardware just don't come cheap. This one can hold many devices though. And they can be easily folded away to the side when not in use.

I noticed there are two similar cockpit coming soon to the market. One is Flightseat (by the company that sells the playseat). Don't know the price yet, but playseat is available in the US for slightly less than $300. This will be sold by simware simulations. I guess the flightseat will probably cost more than playseat. Playseat: this has been around for some time now. i see them being sold at Fry's Electronics. I prefer the rudder arrangement in the playseat where it is tilted. The one in the flightseat seems to have the rudder standalone. The second cockpit is by firstclass simulations, called the Pilot's Seat. The bars are adjustable, compared to the flightseat. That's good. But the price is about 400 sterling pounds! wow. Most of us just use a normal office chair, and put our hotas on the table, or create some home-made device to hold the hotas by the side of the chair. For those with the spare cash, maybe can consider one of these. Just thought of sharing these news.