spec10 Posted June 2, 2011 Posted June 2, 2011 (edited) In the early nineties I stumbled upon MS Flight Simulator 4.0 ... that's when everything changed. :p I went through every phase there is ... I struggled with the keyboard, I bought many Joysticks over the years, I built a small autopilot panel out of a cardboard box with some switches, buttons the electronics of an old keyboard and glued an inkjet printed faceplate onto that ... I learned how to properly aviate and navigate with all different kinds of great free- and payware planes, I spent some time guiding people through the virtual airspace of the ivao network as an ATC ... I enjoyed the great dynamic campaign of Falcon 4.0 and there are countless more flightsim related things I did over the years ... ... but I never went all the way. I never went for the "premium package" when it comes to hardware. Well, I finally reached a new level. It's still humble, compared to all the other great pits around here, but it's evolving,... here's my current pit :) (I HAD to include my trackir hat, even though I'm not even a "fan" of united airlines ) The UFC-Keyboard contraption is still a work in progress. I glued the FWD, MID and AFT button on before I realized that those don't have any function modelled :p I might add some color patterns and remake the buttons in the process, those were just some dirty proof of concept (the font is wrong, was just some quick and dirty photoshop work I put together a few days ago right before I was about to go to sleep ;)). I quite like the concept though. The buttons are printed on a regular laser printer, laminated and then glued on with double sided tape. Some kind of faceplate and a glareshield is another thing I'm thinking about. Unfortunately the F7 doesn't work on the UFC keyboard, that's the main reason why there's another keyboard in front of it right now. I need to call AWACS every now and then ;) I might also add some panels in the near future, maybe starting with the electronics panel somehow mounted on the right side of the chair. The left screen is running Helios (below the right MFCD there's a bar which reveals the CDU controls when clicked. All copied and modified from Gadroc's awesome A10 Helios profile). I'm thinking about getting a touchpanel for that screen, or maybe I'll get the Thrustmaster MFDs and put them on there, not sure yet. The left screen is a 20,1" 1680x1050 monitor, if anyone knows where I can get a reasonably priced touchpanel for that kind of screen let me know (shipping to germany shouldn't cover half of the price tag if possible :p) Edited June 2, 2011 by spec10
bigbadthomazzz Posted June 2, 2011 Posted June 2, 2011 Looks awesome :) does is work fine with the second keyboard?
spec10 Posted June 2, 2011 Author Posted June 2, 2011 Yep it does, they are both wireless usb keyboards, windows 7 and the sim have raised no complaints so far :) Would be nice to have the 2nd keyboard as a programmable kind of joystick / gamepad device. Right now it's just simply 2 keyboards with normal mapping. The ufc keys 1,2,3 ... are mapped to Q,W,E... and so on.
bigbadthomazzz Posted June 2, 2011 Posted June 2, 2011 i hope you will have great flights with it :pilotfly::joystick::D
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