Harley

Eh, yeah, so not to be a jerk at all, you're well below the glideslope there. That was a greased landing on the boat for sure, but even the meatball shows you well below glidepath. It seems a little unfortunate that we went from having to be on speed at 5° AOA to grab the wire at all to breaking the trunnions at just over 3°. It is much less forgiving than before, but more realistic? I don't know. There are reasons that most of us aren't real naval aviators, perhaps this is one of them, but we've all seen some pretty rough landings without damaging the gear reliably. Maybe make it a randomizer with an average chance of breaking the gear until being obviously outside the envelope? It's a pretty stark contrast and a bit of a shock. But, it made me have to learn the ACLS and maintain glideslope. It's still difficult to land on the carrier, and fine tuning is essential, but wow. If this is more realistic, then I've got a lot more airplane to manage. I suppose I accept that challenge.

I've completed the basic structure of the simpit, and can fly in it now. It does make a world of difference, but modifications will be made. The building has only just started, really. I'm flying exclusively the F/A-18C and love it. The method you've mentioned earlier is really unnecessary if someone simply turns on the IFF. Sad that someone wouldn't want to experience it, and instead make it into a shooter game. But, I'm enjoying it. I hope one day that we can figure out how to beam the HUD onto something, and perhaps integrate the HMD with trackIR and fly with all the systems behaving as they should. That will be the day that it will be indistinguishable from real combat, spare the G-forces and actual death.

The basic structure is now complete. There will be modifications, but I can at least fly now!

It's not finished yet. I had that in mind, I'm just not sure if I'll need to. It's not really tall, and I'll be able to step into it rather easily. I left that option available with the way I built it, but I also need it to be secure as I'm likely to secure the seat to the consoles. I don't know yet.

Well, there it is with all the panels I have mounted where they will live until some of them are replaced with more authentic assemblies from Tek. Now to setup the monitor I'll use for the time being, and then paint at some point. I've got to fly soon. It's bugging me.

I still need to mount the winwing takeoff panel and the combat ready panels, but it's almost cleared for test flight. Eventually, I'll source all the TekCreations panels for all the right reasons. I want to have every control that the DCS F/A-18C has in its cockpit. There's only one way to have a sim pit, and it's to have all the controls you need to stop using the VC. I don't plan to build the cockpit bow, but I've left room to add the other exterior bows and structure for the "DISP" countermeasures button on the left sill, but a windshield? Probably not necessary. It's inside. But, I would like to go far enough to make the fwd vents between the MIP and the side consoles, and perhaps install a fan and duct it to there, just for accuracy. That may take some effort, but a great addition for accuracy. Who knows.

I wanted to be totally pure, and even considered the openhornet plans, but the more I got into it, it seemed like I could build for months, and still not be finished. So, although it is close enough for me, it may not be for some, and that's fine, also. It's not for everyone else! I am still building, and suffering while missing DCS at this stage, it's nearly as done as I need to begin flying in it. I am getting impatient, and will likely fab a seat from the remaining wood until I can do or find something more authentic. I've made sure to leave room in critical areas for the addition of other things, such as a HUD from Coutronics (because it seems the most likely candidate to make into an operational unit) and the right side is pretty bare without all those TekCreations panels I will inevitably install, but this is how it's progressing so far. I'll also paint the structure because I can't bear the raw look of all this MDF, which will require another disassembly of all this work, but it will always be something to tinker with, I suppose.

This is how far I've come over the past 3 weeks or so. The biggest parts of the structure are close to completion. Now I'm trying to find ways to keep it pure. I don't want a keyboard shelf because I'm hoping to have all the essential controls (and eventually all of the accurate panels) on board, so I won't need to break the immersion using one. I'll likely build a seat for it from similar materials, but with decent padding, because of simplicity. So far, quite a challenge. There are very few square angles on this thing. Almost every flat surface has an odd angle, including a downhill slope on the side consoles front to back at (best I could measure) of about 1 1/4" over their length of nearly 30". I've obsessed over drawings and many other diagrams that came from these forums and other sources. It turns out that the diagrams in the back of the NATOPS manual is actually very close when blown up 400%, but not exact. I used the drawings as a template laid out on the sheets of 3/4" MDF that I would cut up to build the structure, measuring angles instead of just trusting the drawings and assuming their scale would be 100% accurate. So far, off to the races! I'll post some pictures of the reference material I used, and then what it's turned into so far.

Does anybody have any ideas at all? Has this been asked before? I can surely get into the code and try some things, I just want to see if I'm asking something that has already been solved. Is this a known issue?

If anyone in here has figured it out, I'd like to know how it worked. To get support for this, I want to also include @WINWING and @WinwingTech I'm using the winwing Top Gun MIP, and there is no going back. I've even gone as far as to start building a sim cockpit to really do it justice. So, while I'm getting used to not needing the virtual cockpit for reference much anymore, I'd like to know if anyone has yet found any way to make the UFC display work when you're in the HUD only (L alt + F1) view? The screens work great in this view for me. It really was plug and play. But the UFC stops updating the display when in this view. Is there an entry into the LUA file that can make this work correctly? Is it as simple as that? It only took the addition of 2 lines in the script to fix the problem of desync after crashing. Everything else seems to work as advertised, and it seems like something just as simple was missed to make this work correctly. For folks building sim cockpits, it's essential that the UFC sync up properly. The inputs still work, so the buttons still control their selected function, but it doesn't display what the current function being selected is. Am I explaining this correctly? Again, this is only in the (L alt + F1) HID only view. When the virtual cockpit is being used, all works as it should.

Also, for what it matters, there are perhaps 2 right angles in this build. Everything else is some kind of ergonomics nightmare, and the people that prototyped this thing, as well as many other structures for aircraft, must have been pointing and laughing at people like us. Simply, wow. Everything has some angular challenge to it. The side consoles aren't square in any dimension, and from one of the drawings I am using for reference, they even have a slope front to back, best I can measure is about 1 1/4" from front to back, let alone the 10° of inward angle. Every angle is a compound angle, and what a challenge. It has been fun so far.

I did. If there's something else you all see that I don't, let me know. I saw a few pages of their very large accumulation of data, and I must say, either I am really behind the times, or it's in a whole other language that I am perhaps too impatient to learn. Their whole website is kind of a mess to sort out, but their plans look amazing. Textbook conditions, and it's amazing that it's all free to look at. I spent a lot of years as a carpenter, and I've already started constructing a sim pit out of the standard 3/4" MDF. I'll likely just make that work. It is coming together nicely, but there is still no real standard template for much of this, perhaps for all the right reasons. If we could just scale, cut, and assemble a sim pit from a neat template, it would take some of the element of surprise from it. I'm committed now. As of this time, I have a seat platform and the side consoles built. I may just build a seat from similar materials since the real thing is made of materials that are just as comfortable to your backside, with a layer of foam on it. Hoping to be finished with the raw structure in a couple more weeks. Then the difficult part begins with the assembly of all the panels, programming, more measuring and fitting, and before you know it, I'll be broke! So much fun, though. I can't wait to fire up DCS for the first time from this cockpit.

I suppose I should have clarified this first: I'm building a simpit for the F-18. That said, and after installing all the winwing gear from the top gun MIP, the only thing that doesn't work in the alt+F1 HUD only view is the UFC. The other panels continue to display their relevant info, and it is awesome to see. I haven't yet tried to input any data into the UFC in the HUD only view yet, but I can tell you that the UFC display stops updating in the HUD only view. I hope winwing will find a way to make this work with their gear.

I'm going to dig up this thread to attempt to fish for relevant measurements. There is very little available, and it's vague what does come up. Some inferences can be made, but cutting up an e pensive sheet of anything with unsure measurements really is troublesome. I've printed the NATOPS pages at 400%, and it looks close, but I can't be certain. The winwing panels don't spec like this, either. We really are in some uncharted territory. Any news on some reliable info for this? I was watching this thread: https://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3351156/1 But it is not for measurements. The hornetpits.org website has yet to respond to my requests to join their forums, also. There has to be a way to assure some of this before wasting material.

I love this whole thread! I'm going to do this with wood, because I already speak that language, meaning I'm probably not going to have the desire to learn 3d print language for this project and still finish it in the time frame I want to complete it in. That said, is there a way that anyone can give dimensions of some kind? What I'm specifically looking for are the dimensions in depth between the MFDs and the IFEI panel, the recessed face from the upper portion where, for example, the left MFD mounts to the face where the IFEI panel mounts. It looks to be nearly 3" or so, and I want to get it close to proper for a 1:1 version made from MDF and whatever else I can cut with a saw. I can likely work out the remaining dimensions, because they will be dictated by the sizes of the MFDs and UFC, as well as the spin recovery panel and the master arm panels. I've recently got the Winwing MIP, and all that purchase made me want to do is complete the rest of a whole cockpit. I've also got the super taurus and the super libra, likely to change to the Orion 2 when I get the structure started. Any help would be greatly appreciated.