Building a high quality Flight Simulator, Home Cockpit or Desktop Trainer with high fidelity is a challenging experience. The following video gives you a quick glance into all of the steps taken, from start to finish, in order to build a DIY Cockpit that resembles the real aircraft, and can be used to train pilots, […]

Having Flight Simulators and Home Cockpits with Back Lighting is definitely a game changer. Back Lighting adds another level of comfort, and it makes it easier to locate specific labels or instruments. However, sometimes the lights may be too bright, or too dim, and need to be either increased or decreased. This is where a […]

When working on your Flight Simulator, if building something similar to a real airplane, you will notice that not all of the instruments are side by side or even close by. If using one large monitor to load your instrument or gauge cluster this is perfect, but sometimes we have to split the instruments between […]

In this video we review several products by ProDeskSim, which create a variety of add-on products for Simulator Hardware manufacturers such as Logitech, Honeycomb and Turtle Beach. Part of the review is actually performed on a real Airplane and tackles accuracy, functionality, and features such as fully functional TO/GA buttons. The Add-Ons which include throttle, […]

Supporting independent Flight Simulator hardware manufacturers is a passion of mine. DIY Cockpit Panels has created Landing Gear and Flaps Lever panels that are worth taking a look at. In the video review below, you can see all of their features. They include everything you need to completely simulate their functions in the simulator, for […]

This video demonstrates how Touch Sensors can also be used to create a fun and different way to perform actions in the simulator just as you would by using a Push Button or Toggle Switch. The TTP223 Touch Sensor Module offers several configurations and the option to add LEDs, which can be used as status […]

This video shows you a very neat trick: How to convert Single Pole Single Throw Switches and Pushbuttons to Single Pole Double Throw configuration, adding more inputs and flexibility to your Simulator or Cockpit. SPST switches can only send one action to the Simulator, while SPDT can send two, which is usually needed to modify […]

Adding LED Switches and LED Pushbuttons can be a cool addition to a simulator or cockpit. They can also help with identification, or helping us determine what is on or off in dark environments. Most of the USB Interface Cards we use with Cockpit Setups, such as the Leo Bodnar cards, simple USB PC Interface […]

Knowing your Avionics is a big part of enjoying your Flight Simulator. I built a simple Home Cockpit, compatible with prepar3d, X-Plane, Flight Simulator, and Flight Simulator X, in which I could load many different types of Avionics and Gauges for familiarization. The first step was to obtain the Cockpit Panel. Since this was a […]

Building the Flight Simulator program at the Florida Flight Center has taken me in some adventures that have greatly challenged me as a programmer, hardware engineer, cockpit builder, researcher, and aviation enthusiast. One of my first assignments was to assemble a familiarization trainer for the Citation Mustang as a part of our CE-510 Type rating […]