AV-8B simpit

[Cripple]

Greetings!

 

After lots of fun and games in my spitfire, I've started a second simpit (as one does!). This time it's the AV-8B Harrier, which I picked up in a sale and *love* flying.

 

Premise behind this build is slightly different to the Spitfire. Now that I've flown in VR for a few years, I know (despite the nay-saying "Worthies" on these fine fora back in '16/17) that one can happily twiddle knobs and flick switches with a headset on. So this build will be optimised for VR and light-weight over nit-picking realism, as I plan to add it to a motion platform in due course.

 

So, what have we got so far? Decide to scale the thing around the TM MFDs, as there are 40+ buttons straight up. They are a little underscale for the Harrier, I believe, but close enough for sim work. Then I pixel-counted the dash image in the RAZBAM manual. That, and waggling a real tape measure in a virtual cockpit gave me a 22" x11" dash to play with. I also measured the distance from the dash to the top of the UFC keys, and made it to be the width of an MFD (14cm or 5.5" in old money). All good. The black box is a plastic 1.6ltr Really Useful Box, to give the required offset and hide the electronic gubbins. The UFC keypad is a 23 key Koolertron usb keyboard from Amazon. Cuts down the wiring nicely. Intention is to use a number of Bodnar boards to interface the rest of the switches to the pc. Used 'em, love 'em. Again, it takes a lot of the skiddling about out of it.

 

Using a CH Fighterstick for the wiggling, TM rudder pedals, and a Saitek triple throttle for the thrust/stop/nozzles. The latter works wonders, and I can heartily recommend it for flying the Harrier. Currently hacking an old usb analogue thumbstick controller in to a throttle grip.

 

(Should be pic here. Let me know if it doesn't show.)

 

Edited May 5, 2019 by Cripple

[Marcq]

Greetings!

 

After lots of fun and games in my spitfire, I've started a second simpit (as one does!). This time it's the AV-8B Harrier, which I picked up in a sale and *love* flying.

 

Premise behind this build is slightly different to the Spitfire. Now that I've flown in VR for a few years, I know (despite the nay-saying "Worthies" on these fine fora back in '16/17) that one can happily twiddle knobs and flick switches with a headset on. So this build will be optimised for VR and light-weight over nit-picking realism, as I plan to add it to a motion platform in due course.

 

So, what have we got so far? Decide to scale the thing around the TM MFDs, as there are 40+ buttons straight up. They are a little underscale for the Harrier, I believe, but close enough for sim work. Then I pixel-counted the dash image in the RAZBAM manual. That, and waggling a real tape measure in a virtual cockpit gave me a 22" x11" dash to play with. I also measured the distance from the dash to the top of the UFC keys, and made it to be the width of an MFD (14cm or 5.5" in old money). All good. The black box is a plastic 1.6ltr Really Useful Box, to give the required offset and hide the electronic gubbins. The UFC keypad is a 23 key Koolertron usb keyboard from Amazon. Cuts down the wiring nicely. Intention is to use a number of Bodnar boards to interface the rest of the switches to the pc. Used 'em, love 'em. Again, it takes a lot of the skiddling about out of it.

 

Using a CH Fighterstick for the wiggling, TM rudder pedals, and a Saitek triple throttle for the thrust/stop/nozzles. The latter works wonders, and I can heartily recommend it for flying the Harrier. Currently hacking an old usb analogue thumbstick controller in to a throttle grip.

 

Great start :thumbup: What happen to the spit? Haven't seen updates for a while

 

Marc..

[harvesthunt]

Have you had any further progress on this simpit?