Joe Kurr

I don't think it will be less comfortable to hold with your left hand, compared to a standard joystick placed in the middle. Most of the time you'd be operating the buttons with your left hand anyway, since you don't have to hold your hand on the throttle all the time. If you look at some in-cockpit videos from the Russian Knights, Swifts or Kvochur's Test Pilot Team, you can see they never let go of the stick, and operate the instruments with their left hand.

That's the plan :) Although I came across a nice little controller kit which might enable us to create an entirely new stick from scratch. As far as electronics are concerned, this is a piece of cake, but I still have to check with HPO on this, as he is designing the stick.

Check this topic ;)

There are a few reasons for that. First, most people in our team use a Suncom HOTAS, which needs a keyboard to be connected to it via a PS/2 connector. On this image you can see how it is connected at the moment: Of course this is just for testing purposes, the final kit will be neatly built into a small container behind Wasserfall's instrument panel :) Second, I don't have enough money at the moment to go shopping for those parts, so I use whatever I have lying around here. Being a developer and computer enthousiast, there is plenty to mess around with :) I have been pointed to another interesting option though, which I am looking into now: an AVR or PIC microprocessor. These things can be programmed to emulate a PS/2 keyboard, and do all kinds of stuff. But here again the price is a problem, a complete kit costs between 100 and 200 Euros. So there may be some very interesting things out there, but for me to be affordable, they have to cost less than 30 Euros (the estimated cost of the interface I'm working on now) O yeah, and last but not least... It gives much more satisfaction when you get something to work that you have actually built yourself :) I am aware of those kits, as a matter of fact I got a great (though maybe a bit mad) idea when I saw the possibilities of the A-Pac :) I won't go into details about that yet, I'll let you guess what I was thinking about when I read that it supports 4 analog axis and 24 buttons ;) When I'm done with the instruments, we won't be needing touchbuddy or virtual panels anymore :) I'm planning on building real mechanical analog gauges. I have already gathered some info about them, and I have made a 'proof of concept' flight-data export application, but at the moment I'm concentrating on the input part of our interface, to get the switches to work.

There are plans to produce more pits, but at this moment we're concentrating on getting this one done, this may take some time :)

We don't have any :) The only thing we're working with at the moment are photographs and some schematic drawings from the Su27SK cockpit. We are aware that the cougar has a removable handle, but as we only have a Suncom set to test with, the first grip will be made compatible with the Suncom F-15E Talon stick. But HPO has already thought of this and is working on a small extension that can be custom-made for other sets, such as the Saitek X-45 and X-52, and later maybe even the Cougar.

The Ultimarc solution looks interesting. Problem is, I don't have a lot of money to spend at the moment, so I'm using stuff I find lying around here in my home :) But this one is bookmarked. Thanks for the tip.

I use a keyboard controller from an old PS/2 keyboard to connect to the PC. The controller will be connected to an interface I'm still working on, which in turn will be connected to ten pulse generators which will be triggered by the switches. The buttons will be connected directly to their corresponding pins in the keyboard matrix. This way, when I flick a switch or press a button, Lock On receives a normal keystroke as if I were using the keyboard :) Here are some pics showing what I'm working on: 1. Mapping out the keyboard matrix (this has to be done for every type of keyboard we use) 2. Three hours have passed, mapping is finally complete 3. I have connected a floppy cable to the keyboard controller (quite difficult in fact, because the connector pads have a carbon layer over them) 4. Testing the pulse generator. This will give a 0.1 second pulse to the main interface, which will then trigger the keyboard controller The LED is there to see if it works. 5. PCB design for the pulse generator is complete. I couldn't get it any smaller than this using standard components :)

As several people within our team were building a cockpit, or planning to build one, we decided it would be cool to combine the efforts and build a completely interactive cockpit instead of several 'standard' pits. This new cockpit will be modelled after the basic Su-27 found in Lockon: Flaming Cliffs. At this moment we're still in the very early stadium of designing and testing. The plan is to make most of the instruments to work using the export features in Lockon. We could of course use the SimMeters solution for a quick start, but we decided to design and build everything ourself. Some key features planned for our cockpit are: - Analog mechanical gauges, such as AoA meter, G-meter, engine management, oil pressure, etc - Working buttons and switches - A remodelled stick resembling the one found in the real Su-27 - A dual sliding throttle, as found in the Su-27 - Easy to build and disassemble, using the same system as found in the Akers-Barnes pit. Currently there are four people involved in this project: - LigerZero: Overall cockpit assembly - Wasserfall: Instrument panels - HPO: Stick design - Joe Kurr: Software and electronics Here are some early pics of our progress so far (I'll include more images later today when I get home): The front panel: 3D preview of the new stick: We plan to do a small presentation of this project at the upcoming Lowland Tiger Meet in Ahaus, where we will also be demonstrating prototypes of some parts we've already made.

Thanks for the schematics, they might come in handy when we try to make a Cougar-compatible version. At this moment we only have a Suncom set to test with, so this is our first priority. When this works, other sets might follow if we can work out how the grip connects to the base. I'll create a new topic about our cockpit, to keep this one clean.

The MiG-29 closes its airbrake as soon as you lower your landing gear, because it would hit the runway if it was still open.

Your cockpit looks strikingly similar to what we're working on :) I'm in the same project as Wasserfall, doing the electronics and software to get the panels working. The goal is to have mechanical analog gauges, instead of a display behind the panels, and working buttons and switches. We plan to do a small presentation at the Lowland Tiger Meet, if all goes well we can show a prototype of our new Flanker stick as well. This stick is designed as a replacement for the grip on the Suncom F-15E Talon, but other sticks might follow when we figure out how they work. There are also plans to do a sliding double throttle like in the Su-27, but only after the stick is done.

That depends on what you define as 'near' ;) It's in Ahaus, Germany, near the German-Dutch border. Here it is on Google Maps HTH

Just curious, what kind of symbol does the RWR display if it detects an unknown (new) radar?

How about some civilian people? Right now the only people to walk the Lockon landscape carry Stingers or Iglas. It would be more realistic if there were some civilians about too (not just cars) This would also be cool for us demo pilots to create an airshow crowd along the runway :)

The Dutch Flanker Display Team is still here, ever since we started with Flanker 2.0 in 2001. In the past five years we have slowly grown from two to seven members, and are now involved in organising the annual Lowland Tiger Meet.

I chose the F-18 / MiG-29K variant, with possible F-15C / Su-27 addon, because then we will have both land- and sea-based aircraft, which all quite match to each other. But if I'd have a say in things (which I don't) I'd try to implement the MiG-29M-OVT and / or the Su-30MKI. The AFM should be able to model TVC, and data should be already available (or obtainable). The MiG-29OVT is just an M upgraded with RD-33OVT engines (only one switch added in the cockpit), and the Su-30MKI is in service in India. Main reason for these two: they're my favourites :)

You can use the lua script solutions on one PC as well. Just edit the scripts and change the addresses which point to the other pc to either 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1' This way you can run the external program on your 15" monitor, whilst flying lockon on your 19" monitor. The performance hit is dependent on the resources the external program takes to run, but if you don't do any really complicated stuff, this should be minimal. I'm planning on building a cockpit with some working buttons, dials and indicators, and plan on getting it to work just like I described here.

Thrust Vectoring is not needed to do a Kulbit. The Indian Air Force has demonstrated that it can be done with their (non-TVC) Su-30K as well.

Until recently I was living near the Gilze-Rijen airbase, yes. I need to change my location now, since I moved some weeks ago :)

To everyone who hasn't signed up yet: If you want to take part in this event, sign up now. Subscriptions will close on September 1st.

Shooting down an aircraft can also be seen as "intentionally causing a critical system failure" ;) By the way, the Dutch Apaches (AH-64DN) are the only ones to deploy flares. Others have missile rails (standard AH-64D) or nav lights (AH-64A) on their wing tips.

The question marks are substitutes for cyrillic characters which aren't in your current (Dutch) code page. One way to solve this is to install Russian language support on your PC. I also have two versions of LOFC (English downloaded + Russian CDs), and will try to merge them when I have time, probably the last week of July.

Dutch Flanker Display Team: 2 F-16 Pilot: 0 :)

This is my Table Pit, which fits under almost any table: On this picture a Dutch F-16 pilot is dogfighting one of our team members.