Home Trips Motor Home
Projects		 3D Print, House,
& Misc. Projects		  Machine Shop
Projects		 Automotive
Projects		 Early Computer
Days		 About



Putting Together a Flight Simulator



View from a Beech Baron on runway 3L at JFK

To go to part 2 now, CLICK HERE


This is a report on my progress building a flight simulator.  Even though I usually stay at home most of the time, it seems so much more restricting when you are told,  instructed, commanded, ordered, suggested, or directed to do so!  In looking for a project to help pass the time during the COVID-19 Stay-at-Home directive, I considered several things, including putting together some form of a usable flight simulator, an idea I had, which was strongly encouraged by several of my friends.  I have not run a flight simulator on my computer since the early 2000's, and then it was simply on a single monitor computer with a minimum of accessories.  Some of the descriptions below have been rearranged to keep the work on a single item together rather than jumping back and forth as was actually done during the build.

What's available:
Not wanting to disappoint my friends, I started my research.  There are 3 popular flight simulator programs which provide a realistic means of general flying,  plus one that has been announced but not released yet.  These do not include the shoot-them-down and blow-them-up types of games.

X-plane 11 is a currently supported, very popular simulator which provides an extreme degree of realism and has many included aircraft and thousands of detailed airports throughout the world.  In addition to those included, there are an almost unlimited number of additional aircraft, more highly detailed airports, and scenery available from 3rd parties.  Costs for both the program and the add-ons are nominal.  There is also a Pro version which can be used in FAA certified flight sims.

Microsoft Flight Simulator X has not been updated by Microsoft for a good decade, but the program is still very widely used by both individuals looking to improve their flying skills and by gamers who may not even be or have an interest in becoming real world pilots, but who gather on line and fly where all planes in an area can be seen by all the participants.  They can even designate an ATC controller to realistically control all the planes participating.  Many times these events turn into a general goof-off session, and people have fun, but are not really flying realistically.  There are many after market additions available for this program.

The third program is Prepar3d which is geared toward professional use and certified-by-FAA flight simulators.  It is based on Microsoft Flight Simulator X with many of their own improvements, and is more expensive than the others.

Flight Simulator 2020.  Microsoft is currently working on a brand new simulator which should be released some time this year.  All the reports sound fantastic!  They are going for an incredible degree of realism in the aircraft, aerodynamics, weather, and scenery.  They are using the data from Bing satellite images to reproduce the ground scenery exactly as it is in real life, house by house, tree by tree.  This database alone is reportedly over 2 Petabytes!  A petabyte is 1000 Terrabytes, which is 1,000,000 Gigabytes!.  The only way you or I could utilize a database of this size is to download data only for the local area you are currently using, and update it as you travel.  This is how they will do it.  You will be able to fly over your house and actually see it!  The program will offer an option to have the simulated weather reproduce the actual weather occurring in your flying area- real time.  They have not announced the price yet, but I am very anxious to try this simulator when it is released.

All the simulators have come a long way since I last used Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004.  Now the airplanes, inside and out, are photo-realistic as is the ground scenery.  The instruments now look exactly like the real things, where as before they were circles with numbers and pointers, readable, but nothing like the actual ones.  The airports have all the buildings and the jetway gates.  They even have baggage carts and catering vehicles driving around the area.  All the taxiways and runways are shown realistically including all the direction signs and lane lines.  Other planes taxi, take off, and land and roads have traffic driving on them.

My choices:
For the simulator software, I decided on X-plane 11.  I first tried their demo and shortly after bought the full copy.  I didn't have anything that would control it except the keyboard and mouse, and you can barely fly at all with just them.  I initially bought an inexpensive, but quite capable joystick from Amazon.  This allowed me much better control, but for civil aircraft, very poor realism. 

I investigated yokes and pedals.  There are basically 3 economical choices of yokes available:  Logitech, CH, and  Honeycomb.  Each has its advantages and disadvantages.  Honeycomb is a brand new entry and is more expensive, but appears to me to be the best in many respects.  Not wanting to invest much at this time, I went on Ebay and found a combination of a CH yoke and CH pedals with some minor damage, at a very good price and ordered them.  They finally arrived and were in better shape than I had feared. 

Disclosed in the ad were a taped up spot on the USB cable and a broken off and missing control arm for variable speed props.  I removed the tape and found the cable sheath somewhat mangled in a couple spots, as though maybe a pet chewed on it.  As it was only about 6 inches from the control, I cut it off and reconnected the slightly shorter cord inside the unit.  I also 3D printed a replacement for the broken control arm.  Painting the gray knobs red and black, and printing the new one in blue has completed my yoke mods.  The manufacturer only provides realistically colored knobs on their more expensive model.
                 
On the left is the yoke as I received it shown by a picture from Ebay (yes, it IS in color) and the center is my finished yoke.  The pedals are shown on the right.  The pedals move,
one forward and the other backward for rudder control, and also apply the brakes individually by pressing the toes down.




Performance:
The best way to judge performance of the simulator (and of games) is by noting how many frames per second the system is capable of rendering and showing.  If the frame rate is much below 30 fps (frames per second), the image will look jerky, and you may see slight pauses from time to time.  Generally anything over 30 is considered acceptable, although some purists insist that you need 60.  It is generally conceded that as of today, there are no single home computers available that will give you acceptable performance if you crank all the options up to the the max and are using 3 or 4 monitors at 4k resolution.  Depending on your computer, you can usually get decent performance by cutting back on the options and/or reducing the resolution or number of monitors.  For the really dedicated, some use a high end computer for each monitor and connect them via a local network.  This provides maximum detail and scenery objects at a very high frame rate.

I was initially flying quite successfully using one monitor at 1080p, but when I tried more monitors, the performance really dipped.  I would like to use 3 monitors to give me almost 180 degrees of forward and side visibility.  There are 2 ways of doing this: 

    1.  You can extend the view in Windows or with a utility program so that they functionally become one very wide monitor.  This has a only slight effect on the frame rate, but causes significant stretching of the image at the ends of the outer monitors.  I have found that this is not only distracting, but a fair amount of detail is stretched right off the monitor.

    2.  You can define separate monitors in X-plane.  Each monitor has a narrower, defined view and does not exhibit this distortion, but there is a significant loss in performance.  This is the method I want to use for its correct depiction of the side views.

New Computer Required

I have been aware for some time now that I am overdue for a computer upgrade.  My primary computer is 6 years old and my secondary one is 11.  In addition, my secondary has been having some hardware problems lately.  With neither system capable of supporting the level of performance needed for a decent flight simulator, I decided that the time to upgrade is now!  After deciding to upgrade, I broke the process down into several segments:

 1.  SSD Utilization:  Over the last few years I have accumulated several solid state drives (SSDs), ranging from 128GB to 1 TB, for my various systems.  An SSD is much faster and more reliable than a conventional hard drive, and the prices have come down a lot recently.  dLooking at where these drives were located, I found that they were not efficiently used.  I had large drives where I needed only a small capacity and vice versa.  The first task was to determine which system should have which drive for the best overall utilization.  These drives were in my main system, my secondary system, my laptop, my CNC computer and my weather station system.  After a lot of backing up, restoring, cloning, and drive swapping, I finally had all my systems working with drives appropriate for the tasks.  As it turned out, only one system, my CNC support computer, already had the optimal size drive.

2.  Parts selection:  I did online research on the current review ratings of CPUs, RAM, motherboards, graphic cards, and power supplies and also kept an eye on which systems performed best with X-Plane.  It turns out that for some reason AMD processors and also their graphics cards just do not do as well with X-Plane as the Intel and Nvidia counterparts.  This is in spite of the recent advance in performance and much lower cost AMD has shown with their very powerful line of Ryzen processors.  I then put together a parts list for my new system, and checked the compatibility of all the parts using an online program.

3.  Demote current system to secondary:  After I determined that my large, high end case from my primary system would be a tight fit where I have my secondary system, (and to save some money), I bought a smaller case for my current system, and moved it.  In other words, I tore my current system all apart and rebuilt it into the smaller case.  I then totally dismantled my previous secondary system.

4.  Build the new system:  I then proceeded to build my new system into my old case.  This system consists of:

             9th generation Intel I-7  9700K 8 core CPU - 3.6GHz (with auto turbo to 4.9GHz)
             Noctua NH-D15S air cooler for CPU
             ASRock Phantom Gaming 4 Z390 motherboard
             16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3600 RAM
             Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070-Super  graphics card
             EVGA 750w 80 plus Gold Power Supply
             Drives: C:/ (system) 500GB NVMe SSD, D:/ (data) 1TB Samsung SSD, E:/ (media) 2TB hard drive (I already had all these drives)
             CD/DVD drive

I selected components such as the CPU and the graphics card one step below the top of the line.  I have found that this still gives great performance and a very long usable performance life. While  reducing the cost of these items about 50%, I am only losing about 10 to 15% in performance.  I also avoided the glitz, extra power consumption, extra heat, and extra cost of the various RGB "light show" components.

5.  Tuning the system:  Other than adjusting the UEFI (BIOS) for the higher RAM speed, I have not done any overclocking, and don't believe that I will need to.  If I were to decide to, my components should be able to see a 10 to 20% performance boost by overclocking them.  (My graphics card is already somewhat factory overclocked.)

6.  Add the software:  I then loaded Windows and many, many programs to bring the new system up to a usable state.  I was fortunate and was able to transfer my Windows 10 Pro license from my old (now dismantled) system to my new system, as it was a retail copy.  OEM copies of the operating system (that come with most computers) are not transferable.  This saved me a lot!

After completing the new system I tried X-plane.  As a comparison, my old system would run a single monitor at 1080P resolution right around 30 fps.  My new system runs the same example at over 100 fps.  I'm a happy camper.  Further tests show that I can run three 1080P monitors at around 40 fps.  This is great!


And here is a photo of my current setup which has three 27 inch monitors, my normal 2, which are moved to the left, and another one half sitting on my desk and half
on my computer case was added.  I had not finished the yoke mods or the throttle quadrant in this picture.



I think it is just amazing what the extra 2 monitors do for the total immersion experience.  When I am flying this, I am there!  I am flying the plane often at some strange location.  Shown here is a Cessna 172 awaiting takeoff at Palomar McClellan airport in Carlsbad, CA.  This is where we kept our plane(s) way back when.  In the 'early 60s I was a 1/3 partner in a 1956 Cessna 172 (N6883A), and some years later after being planeless for several years, a 1/3 partner in a 1960 Cessna 172 (N7869T).  So far I have been sim flying mostly out of Palomar as that is the area where I have done the most real flying.



Here is a picture of exactly the same setup taken at a longer distance.  It really loses something when you are no long "in" it.



Throttle Quadrant
One of my optimistic goals is to be able to make a complete flight without using my mouse or keyboard.  This would require a physical control, switch, knob, etc. for every thing I want to adjust or actuate during the flight.  A somewhat more realistic goal is to use the mouse where required, but avoid the keyboard. 

Since I started this project I have had a desire to see if I could build my own control units using an Arduino controller to give me total flexibility in choosing what and how to implement various controls.  Research showed me that 3 models of the very many types of Arduinos will support a certain joystick library.  Using this library, the Arduino can become a controller through which most any type of input control can be converted into an output signal which the various flight simulators understand.  As a test, I decided to build a stand alone quadrant which contains the throttle and mixture controls.  As an addition part way through, I added switches for the parking brakes, gear up / gear down, and flaps up / flaps down.  I already have throttle and mixture controls on my yoke, but in a rather awkward location, and the yoke I would like to own some day does not have these provisions.

I tried out an Arduino Due (the same type I used on my dividing head) and found the software extremely easy to write once I had the library installed.  With a little trial and error, I was able to use both potentiometers and switches as inputs with the correct outputs going to the flight simulator.  I then started designing the 3D printed case parts.

Note of 5/12/2020:  This first generation quadrant assembly has just been demoted to the level of a prototype!  After kludging two extra groups of functions into a clumsy looking assembly, with some of the controls mis-located, I decided to rebuild the unit, planning for all the functions from the start, and to also include an additional lever control.  Details can be found following the description of this prototype.



This is my finished quadrant.  Initially I built it to only control the throttle and the mixture (black and red knobs).  I
then decided to add parking brake, landing gear, and flap controls.  I added these using an extra box at
the bottom, as I did not want to re-print what I already had (about 13 hour print time).  It is a prototype after all!



This shows the two potentiometers used for the throttle and mixture controls and the Arduino Due.  The controller board still has the capacity
to handle 4 more analog inputs (potentiometers) and 27 more buttons or switches!


      
OK, don't laugh!  The finished box was so light that operating the switches kept moving the box, and I didn't want to have to clamp it down.  I looked for a heavy
steel scrap piece to add to the bottom, but the best I found was this old hammer head that hasn't had a handle in decades.  I hot glued it and a small cut off scrap
 for weight, and now the box is very stable as all the controls are operated.  There are 4 non-slip feet on the bottom.  The rag-tag switch assortment
is what I could scrounge from my parts collection, and includes the parking brake on the left, gear and flaps on the right.

The right hand image shows the I/O ports of the Arduino.  The top micro-USB is connected to the computer during operation and is the only connection
normally needed.  The bottom USB port is used for programming the board.  The external power plug is not needed in this application.


Added an Autopilot

Never having flown a real plane with an autopilot, I was very intrigued by the one in the simulator's Cessna 172.  I found using it very awkward as it is on the very bottom of the instrument panel, and during normal flying is out of the view.  To use it I have to pan the view downward, do the required mouse clicks, then pan back up to again see outside the plane.  As long as I was toying with the Arduino for additional flight controls, I decided to add the autopilot control to my controller.  Electrically it was very simple, just 6 pushbuttons and a switch.  I had to figure out the best way to incorporate it it and decided that yet another box on the bottom was best.  More design and 3D printing and I had it. 

I had a few problems resulting from the add-a-thing-at-a-time approach.  Things like old hammer heads glued just where I wanted to place access holes, no good place to run wires, and screws located where I could not reach them.

It is all together and working (I think) and now I need to learn how to use it!  My hardest task building it was to determine which of the roughly 100 autopilot related commands in the simulator setup performed the correct functions for each button and switch.  A series of trial assignments then comparing the results with using the mouse to operate the same functions on the instrument panel finally solved this problem.  Now when I want to use the autopilot, I can simply press physical buttons without disrupting my view.  Using an autopilot really helps take a lot of the grunt work out of flying!
    
My simple control box has gotten quite complicated!  It's also not very attractive!  It could have been much simpler if it had been designed as the finished unit from the beginning!




Building Version 2:  My initial version started life simply as a proof of concept.  I wanted to explore using an Arduino as a controller for additional flight controls and to verify the proper operation with X-plane 11.  It grew from its test version into a functionally usable peripheral with a couple of new designs added on, and it looked like it!

Version 2 has essentially the same functions, except for the addition of a prop control, but was redesigned from scratch to properly incorporate all the controls in a more usable and more attractive layout.

This is the re-designed unit.  In addition to overall better appearance, it adds the blue prop control, the autopilot controls
are above the switches where they are easier to use, all the switches and buttons are on an easily removable plate, and the
external connectors are now on the right hand side where the cable will be less in the way.


  
The left shows the main frame with the Arduino mounted.  The potentiometer mounts are now much longer since there is no shelf right below them but there is more room in all directions.
The right shows the test fitting of 4 pounds of lead to replace the 2.5 pound hammer head and scrap steel.  The lead will be screwed and glued in place.



The cover was a 12 hour print, I was running low on black filament, and my replacement spool was still 2 days away.  I carefully
weighed what I had left by weighing the filament spool and subtracting the weight of an empty spool.  I had 165 grams, the slicer said I
needed 130.  They were wrong!  Once I saw I would never make it, I saved a small amount of black for the outside of the switch plate.
 A quick couple coats of black satin spray paint on the cover and you would never know there were two colors under it!



Here is the completed assembly less the covers.  You can see that my "saved" black filament lasted for about 3/4 of the switch plate.



I had a problem with the weight of the knobs causing the levers to sometimes drop to the bottom on their own.  The pots I used on this version were
much easier to turn than the first ones.  After looking at several solutions, some of them quite complicated, I recalled that simpler is always better. 
I then designed and built 3 slide-on parts that hold a felt pad, slightly spring loaded against the inside of the cover.  These work great and can
be adjusted for the amount of friction desired.



The finished unit stands proud and ready to serve!


I add a Trim Wheel:

OK,  I'm not done yet!

One of the problems I have found during flying is that the electric trim switch on the yoke lacks having the "feel" that I like when trimming the aircraft.  Also, the trim wheel in the cockpit is at the very bottom of the panel and is even farther to pan down to see than the autopilot, so I cannot see the line indicating the current state of up or down trim.  There is a mark to line up for takeoff trim, and if you ignore resetting this before takeoff, you can create a very unstable and dangerous flying condition.  The bottom line is that I decided to add a trim wheel to my quadrant assembly.

The way I did this was to make a narrow housing the same profile as the main housing, attaching it to the left side with longer screws to the same holes the cover previously used.  This extension contains the trim wheel, with a gear on the side which drives the encoder or potentiometer as the wheel is turned.  The pair of gears allowed me to position the sensor where there was more room, and allowed me to adjust the ratio.
  
The trim wheel addition consisted of a housing, the wheel with gear, a flat mounting plate, and an adjustable small plate to mount the pickup device, and its gear.


The concept was fairly straight forward, but it turned out there were a lot of "gotchas" involved, and I went through the process three separate times.

Note:  I am including this next section  mostly for my own purposes of documentation, and if you are not concerned with the gory details, skip ahead to the label "End of technical details".

My first approach was to drive a rotary encoder so it rotated 3 times the speed of the wheel using a 60 tooth gear on the wheel and a 20 tooth on the encoder.  I needed this gearing to get a suitable number of counts per wheel revolution, as the encoder only has 20 counts per turn.  I initially programmed the Arduino so that the count returned by the encoder (range 0 to 1023) was sent directly to X-Plane as the trim location.  This worked very well except for one major problem.  Since the plane's trim was constantly linked to the position of my wheel, when the autopilot tried to change the trim it all blew up.  You cannot have two different sources controlling the trim simultaneously! 

To try to work around this situation, I changed the program to merely simulate pressing the switch to move the trim, so as to not have any control other than during a move.  This would avoid a conflict with the autopilot.  As long as the wheel was moving, the trim advanced at its fixed rate.  This resulted in the trim operating exactly as though I was pressing the trim switch on the yoke, except the movement of the wheel simulated the pressing of the switch.  For slow, short trim changes, the effect was quite realistic, but fast or long changes were definitely not, as the aircraft trim wheel would run much longer than the duration of turning the new trim wheel.  Also, there was an occasional condition where the plane's trim would keep moving slowly after it should have completed.  This was an absolute disaster as the plane would soon become uncontrollable!  I think this was caused by the encoder coming to rest with its contacts in a non-normal position for parking due the the detent not being able to reliably position the added load of the wheel.  Another lesser problem was if the wheel was turned too fast, the system could not keep up.  This was far less serious, because if it lost part of the move, it was fixed by just moving it more.

Not seeing a way out of these problems, I decided to replace the rotary encoder with a potentiometer.  As the wheel in the plane turns about 10 full turns stop to stop, I either needed a 1:10 gear ratio (actually a little more, as a pot only turns about 3/4 of a turn), or a 10 turn pot.  I dug through my accumulated parts and found a 10 turn pot in a suitable resistance range.  This is a standard 3/4 turn pot which has a built in planetary ball reducing system, resulting in it requiring 10 turns to cover its range.  I reprinted the trim wheel with a 40 tooth gear and made a similar gear for the pot.  For the software I just wanted to compare the current position of the trim to the desired position I had just set and move the trim accordingly.  As I had no feedback on the current position of the aircraft trim, I simulated it by measuring the constant speed of the electric trim, then matching it by keeping track of the exact total time it ran in nose up trim and subtracting the exact total time it ran in nose down trim.  As X-plane always starts with the trim at take off position, which is mid scale, I also started with the Arduino trim at mid scale.  This worked very well, as all I needed to do  was to drive the position of the plane trim to the same position as my trim wheel.  Functionally this worked very well - except ...! 

There was one problem I had trouble solving:  As long as the autopilot was not run, everything stayed in perfect synchronization, but if the autopilot changed the trim, I was off by that amount.  This was not a problem as long as I stayed in the range of the 10 turn pot, but I had no way of centering the wheel mechanically.  Electronically it was always centered at the start of a flight, but as time went by, there was always the chance that I would run into the end of the pot and nothing would work.  I looked at various ways of allowing the pilot to mechanically center the wheel periodically, but did not really come up with anything desirable.

In the process of working with the encoder earlier, I had come up with one encoder library which counted every contact transition, not just complete cycles.  This yielded 80 counts per turn instead of the normal 20.  This plus the fact that I had the potentiometer system working so well brought me to the conclusion that I could use the encoder instead of the pot, but use exactly the same logic.  The program only required a couple definitions and a single line of functional code to be changed.  Now it worked just as well as with the pot, (actually better as there was no jitter) and there was no end of travel to worry about as the encoder can rotate in the same direction indefinitely.

The ratio between the encoder and the wheel was not mathematically correct, but close enough at 1 to 1, so I used the same trim wheel.  I had to reprint the encoder adjustable plate and the encoder 40 tooth gear, put it together, and it works great.  I have found no problems with this solution, except for the limitation that affects all techniques, that if I move the wheel faster than the electric trim moves the plane wheel, the plane will continue to move its wheel until it is in the correct position.  I have moved the wheel very fast and the logic appears to keep up and I have noticed no other problems.  I will stick with this solution (until I find a better one)!

End of technical details
  
The parts left over after the first two unsuccessful tries were a trim wheel with 60 tooth gear, an encoder adjustable plate and 20 tooth gear,
and a 10 turn pot, its adjustable plate, and its 40 tooth gear.  The right picture shows the ingenious friction planetary drive of the 10 turn pot.  The
tiny shaft in the center drives the balls and their carrier (and the pot wiper) around at less than 1/10th the speed of the shaft.



And another version of my "final" quadrant now includes a trim wheel!



Repair/improvement of quadrant (July 2020):

The Arduino board used in the quadrant has two micro-USB connectors:  The top one (as mounted here) is for programming the board and the bottom one for communication with the computer during operation.  I noticed that periodically during use, that my connection with the quadrant was dropped and it would not respond.  Changing the USB cable helped for a while, but an inspection of the socket showed that the metal shell around the connector was deforming.  Steady day to day use, or even just a non-connected cable was damaging the connector.  I decided to order a few type B connectors as used on printers and scanners.  Once they came, I removed the side plate to see how much trouble I would have soldering the 4 needed wire connections.  As I removed the plate, the expanded connector shell caught on the clearance hole and the connector was pulled completely off the board!  Now I had to do something!

It was tricky, but after I determined which pins of the connector needed to connect to each of the tiny pads on the board, I succeeded in connecting them all to slightly larger components that were connected to the correct pins, and wonder of all wonders - it worked.  As the new connector was just a bare metal tube on the outside, I designed and printed a part that let me mount it with a pair of screws.  A little hot glue to secure the delicate solder joints and it is running well, with a much more durable connector.  The programming connector still works and hopefully will continue to do so, as it gets used only if I need to update the program on the board.

The new much larger and more durable connector replaces the damaged connector, which is now missing.  The remaining micro-USB
connector is the one used for programming the Arduino.





 I replace my yoke assembly May 2020

When I started this project I needed some basic aircraft simulator controls.  I found a very inexpensive flight yoke and rudder pedal pair on Ebay for a very good price.  Both pieces required some minor repairs - sold with full disclosure.  I purchased them, repaired them and used them throughout the early stages of the project.  I did not particularly like either of them, and after a few months I purchased the finest reasonably priced yoke available, the Honeycomb Alpha.  Online reviews of this yoke praised it for its quality build, realistic flight characteristics, and its price, comparing it to units costing 3 to 4 times its price.

Some time later, after also replacing the rudder pedals, I sold the initial yoke and pedals for exactly what I had paid for them!

I am totally pleased with my choice of yoke!  It is very well made with a low friction steel shaft providing very realistic motion and forces typical of a small plane.  The wheel turns a full 90 degrees each way, twice what other low price yokes provide, and it provides a good selection of buttons and switches which can be assigned to many tasks.

The Honeycomb yoke is a joy to use.  In addition to a great feel, it includes light and power buss
switches, a magneto control/starter switch, and a good selection of useful controls on the wheel.




Building an instrument panel:

I am quite pleased with my basic controls now.  My quadrant switches and controls, combined with those on my yoke, (which I recently upgraded to my dream yoke, the Honeycomb!) provide me with pretty much all the physical switches, buttons, and levers I need.  The remaining ones should all be OK as virtual ones.  What I am really missing at this point is the ability to see all the instruments, electronics, and controls on and around the instrument panel.  The basic view gives me flight instruments and radios, but does not cover things like transponder, autopilot, flaps controls and indicators, and the trim indicator.  These are all below the normal view and I must rotate my view to see them, resulting in losing my visibility out the windshield.

Many ardent sim builders decide on an airplane and proceed to build physical models of the cockpits, some of them accurate to the extreme.  The realism this provides is hard to beat, but ties the pilot to that specific plane.  Another approach which is infinitely more flexible, although less realistic is to make a panel with 1 or more monitors, often touch screens, which can display whatever combination of instruments and controls is desired.  A program called Air Manager was produced just for this process.  With it, you can build pretty much any instrument panel and automatically link it with your flight simulator so everything works.  With just a couple of keystrokes, you can then set up for a totally different airplane.  The program is really marvelous!  It comes with a number of pre-made instrument panels and over 600 instruments you can pick and choose to design your own panel.  You can also design, draw, and program your own instruments from scratch (if you are skilled).  In addition, there are a large number of additional panels and instruments available for a nominal cost.  I just bought the complete panel for the Cessna 172 for 10 euros ($11.71 with exchange rate and Paypal's cut) to get me several radios and electronic packages not included in the supplied version.
 
My plans are to build a cockpit panel holding two 15.6 inch touch screen monitors.  These should nicely hold just about any combination of instruments, radios, navigation gear, and indicators desired.  I will make an easy-to-install mount for the panel and include provisions for holding my yoke and quadrant as part of it.

I started by looking briefly at the various monitors available that looked appropriate for this task.  Taking the dimensions, which were pretty much all about the same, I designed a wooden frame, a mounting panel, and the necessary base to mount to my desk and hold my other controls

Upon getting the panel parts built and some parts painted, it was time to order the monitors so I could make accurate cutouts to mount them.


The frame uses 2x2's on the bottom and sides, and a 1x2 on the top.  The panel is made of 1/8 in. thick tempered hardboard, similar
to, but not as good as, (in my opinion) the old Masonite that is no longer made.  (I may be a little partial!)
Here I have marked the cut lines for the monitors on the masking tape. This was done after several rounds of measuring, re-measuring,
calculating, and re-calculating.



Fiasco with the monitors:  (Warning!  Long and tedious discussion follows)

I reviewed about a dozen monitors on Amazon and Ebay, ruling out the more expensive and the cheapest ones.  From the remaining units I selected one that was an average price, but seemed to have slightly better brightness and response speed than the others.  Out of a sense of caution, I ordered only one so I could evaluate it before buying the second one.  While I was waiting for Amazon to deliver it I received a discounted offer for the same monitor from an Ebay vendor from whom I had made an inquiry, and the offer was only good for 48 hours.  As the price was a fair amount less than Amazon, I decided to chance it and ordered it also.  I now had my two identical monitors on order from two different vendors.

Well, the one from Amazon arrived and I could not even get it to turn on with the connection method I need.  It worked just fine using a USB-C cable to my laptop, but the input I need for my setup, HDMI and a separate power adapter, did not even power up.  After fiddling with it for a while, I somehow got it to turn on and it worked great! . . . for about 15 or 20 minutes.  I was never able to turn it on with that connection again.  After spending a fair amount of time on the phone with Amazon Customer Support, we decided to return the monitor and they would send another.

A couple days later, the Ebay unit came.  It responded almost identically to the Amazon one, except I never got the quarter hour of operation.  I exchanged emails with the vendor for several rounds and finally he said he would contact an "expert" and we could probably get things working.  I thought a request he made in one of his emails was interesting:  "Please send me a photo of it not working".  I sent several.  I did eventually get it working, but more on that later.

The next day the replacement Amazon unit came.  All three monitors were truly identical, all were shipped from Kentucky (in spite of the Ebay ad stating the item location was northern California!), and all were poorly packed!  Each had an inner box very nicely lined with foam surrounding the monitor.  This was placed in a larger shipping carton with 3 to 6 inches clearance in all 3 directions, padded with one small raft of munched paper which did nothing.  The Ebay unit was in the same size box (it even had the Amazon curvy arrow on it), only without the small raft of paper.  As I picked up the first monitor's box there was a loud "thunk" as the inner box slid to the other end and crashed to a stop.  I didn't let that happen again!

I connected up the 2nd Amazon unit and amazingly, it powered up the first try!  Hey, one out of 3 ain't bad!  I continued to test all the modes and everything appeared to work.  I hooked it up to my simulator and Air Manager and flew using those instruments.  They were bright, clear, and all worked just like they should.  I did shut it down briefly to re-boot my computer and I could not get it to turn on again.  After I let it cool down for a while, all worked again.  This was the only glitch I had.  I was not able to get the touch screen working using the cable they said I need, but when I tried a USB-C cable that plugged into my computer with a standard USB end, even the touch screen worked!  I was ecstatic!  I had a working monitor! --I thought.  It turns out that upon closer examination, the touch screen did not work as well as I thought.  I kept getting a strange pop-up on the right side of my screen and discovered that the touch screen was acting as if I were continuously touching a spot at the very right edge of the screen near the top.  When you touch the screen, it puts a light blue circle around the spot you touch.  There was a continuous half circle at the edge of the screen.  It also made the computer act very unpredictably.

From what I learned on Amazon #2 I got the Ebay machine running quite well - mostly.  I had made an error:  I read the manual and connected it the way they said to!  It said to connect the power supply to the bottom USB-C, connect the HDMI cable, and if I needed the touch screen, connect the micro-USB.  I did all that.  All the monitors worked just fine connecting only the upper USB-C to my laptop, so I thought I would try connecting that with a USB-C cable that would connect to my computer.  It now worked!  I wonder if the returned Amazon unit would have worked.  It still is not 100%, though, as I have not been able to get the touch screen working with the HDMI setup, which I probably could with more time spent.  I know it basically works, as it is fine with the hookup to my laptop.


After I got a monitor working for everything except correct touch screen operation, I mounted it in the left side of the panel.  Just for kicks, I
propped up my smallest old computer monitor  behind the right cutout.  Using Air Manager I put the Cessna instruments on the left and some 737 radios
on the right.  You may notice a slight quality difference (ha!).  The touch screen panel is an IPS display with about 178 degrees of readable viewing
angle.  The old monitor is lower resolution to begin with, and has a very narrow angle of good viewing.  Looking directly at right angles to the screen
it was much better than in this picture, but was still no match for the IPS panel!


In the morning I actually thought I might have 2 monitors to keep and use.  I wanted to re-try the Amazon one to see if the touch screen problem was short or long term.  Sadly, it was still there.

Time to return the two remaining monitors and start shopping for a different brand!  There is no way I could trust any monitor of this brand!

Note from about a week later!  All 3 monitors have been shipped back to and received by the vendors (in the same boxes, but properly packed!).   I have received all my refunds!

New monitors ordered:

I have now ordered two totally different monitors from Amazon to replace these.  They were promised in 4 days, but the tracking indicates I may get them tomorrow which is 2 days.  I picked these monitors for several reasons: 
    1. They are obviously a different design.  Most of the ones offered are similar enough that they may be the same with different brand names, and I don't want any possibility of getting the same design as before. 
    2.  This monitor uses full size HDMI and USB ports instead of the mini HDMI and the microUSB on others.
    3.  They have a US website with English speaking support. 
    4.  User reviews were positive, including examples of using it in the same manner as I need.

The one con, which I realized immediately, is they are slight larger in all 3 dimensions.  The extra 1/4 inch in height means that the screen will not line up with my existing cutouts.  The extra 1/2 inch in width means there is not enough room left to plug in the connectors the same way I was previously going to, and the extra 1/4 inch of thickness is fine.  It is this dimension that allows full size connectors.  I have come up with solutions for all these problems, but it will involve a little rework to the frame, and making  a new panel with cutouts to match the new monitors.

The agony continues:

I had been given a 4 day delivery time from Amazon for the new monitors, but the box arrived after two!  I anxiously took it in and opened it.  In shock, the first thing I saw was 13.3 inches in big print on the top box inside.  I panicked and ran to verify that I truly ordered the 15.6 size - I had.  I then looked again at the product box and saw that it wasn't even close to what I ordered.  It was a pair of very nice DVD players!

This is the very disappointing sight I had when I went to see my new monitors

The problem really was not Amazon's fault.  They were shipped from a big name 3rd party in New Jersey, but the Amazon customer service agent felt bad that I had been having so much trouble trying to buy my monitors, and he issued me a courtesy store credit for far more than I would expect, if I expected any at all!  That was very nice.  He re-ordered them for me on an exchange basis, issued me yet another prepaid shipping label and again quoted 4 business days for delivery.  I just received an email from UPS stating it will be delivered tomorrow (2 days).  I guess I was paid well enough for another 2 day delay, and actually I am receiving the replacements on the day originally quoted for the previous round.
The final word on monitors (I hope!):

Well, at last the maddening monitor merry-go-round is over!   I received the two replacement monitors, they were truly what I had ordered, and they both worked right out of the box(s) - even the touch screens.  In addition, I was able to hand the UPS delivery man my return box and did not even have to drive halfway downtown to the UPS store to return the wrong ones.  Yay!


The DIY Knobster:

One of my favorite flight sim Youtubers, Russ Barlow, an ex-military pilot, an ex-airline pilot, and now retired, is an avid simmer.  He is very intelligent and knowledgeable about electronics, programming, and allied fields. One of his videos is what inspired me to build the touch screen panel.  Russ is a big fan of touch screen and loves the Air Manager software, but got very annoyed when it came to turning knobs on the instruments and radios.  Most touch screen actions are very natural such as touching a push button or swiping a switch up or down.  Air Manager's solution to rotary controls is to first touch the desired knob, which shows a blue highlight, then use your finger to draw circles around it in the direction you want it to turn.  This is a good solution, but is not close to real life when adjusting various settings.  Probably the greatest objection is that you have to keep your eyes on the monitor continuously while making changes or your finger circle will probably move out of position.  Russ did some experimenting trying various switches and rotary encoders, and after several iterations developed a device now called the Knobster.  This is a double rotary encoder with push button.  It is a device with a large knob in the back and a smaller one in front, and pressing the front one works like a push button.  He convinced the Air Manager people to support it and now it is a much easier and more realistic control.  If, for instance you want to tune a radio which uses the large knob to tune whole frequencies, the small knob to tune the decimal portion, and the push button to perform another function, you first touch the desired control on the screen, which turns yellow.  You then turn and press the knobs exactly like you would the real control in an airplane and all its functions work.  Once your hand is on the knobs, you are free to look away at the results of turning the knob, at other instruments, or outside.  Not wanting to run a production shop, he turned his invention over to the Air Manager people in exchange for a small license fee per unit sold.  He also released it as an open source project. 

Air Manager provides the links to instructions to build your own, which is what I did.  I could have bought a complete unit for about $130, but instead bought the rotary encoder and an Arduino Nano for about $40 and built my own.


This is my DIY Knobster.  The encoder came with a small circuit board which is positioned vertically on the right  The Arduino
Nano is across the bottom.  A small 3D printed framework holds the boards together.  The threaded bushing under the knobs
  mounts it to the panel.  The mini USB connector on the Arduino at the very bottom, under the knobs, connects to the computer.



Modifying the panel:

Since the new monitors have slightly larger case dimensions (the screen size is identical to the previous ones), several things did not work anymore.  I could not properly align the screen with the cutouts any more, even the modest increase is size prevented me from having room for some of the connectors, special cutouts in the frame no longer align with the connectors needing extra clearance.

My first task was to figure how to mount the larger monitors in the old frame and be able to plug in all the needed cables.  Since all the connectors on these monitors are on one edge I needed no clearance on the other.  There was no way I could place both monitors and the connectors plus a reasonable cable bend inside the existing frame!  I ended up notching the vertical frame member on the left side to provide an opening large enough to plug in the cables right through the frame.  Of course I had to patch the notches already in the frame first.  By placing both monitors tight against the frame uprights there was plenty of space for connecting the right hand monitor in the space between them.

It was clear that I needed to replace the front panel to get differently positioned holes.  This time I bought a panel of dry erase whiteboard material.  This is fiberboard with a sheet of white plastic laminated on the front, and a sheet of black on the back.  It gives a much better surface and testing on a small sample I found that one coat of paint covers it quite well.  The raw hardboard took 3 coats as the first ones soaked in.

I spent hours measuring everything and laying out the cutouts.  For some reason, they just did not quite line up correctly.  I finally decided that Youtuber Russ had a pretty good idea.  He cut a piece of cardboard exactly the size of the monitor case, carefully marked the display size on it and drilled small holes at each corner of the screen.  He then positioned the cardboard exactly where he wanted the monitor and using his cardboard holes for alignment, drilled  through the front panel.  Drawing lines on the panel between the holes now gave him his cut lines.  I did exactly the same thing, except I used a scrap piece of the first panel hardboard instead of cardboard.  It came out as well as the first panel where I measured carefully then used the mill to cut the opening.  That could have been a problem as the openings are larger than my mill can travel and I had to cut half then turn the panel around and try to line it up accurately to cut the other half, and repeat for the other hole.  The original panel cut left a fuzz on the edge that made it impossible to accurately line up the second setup.  Sanding and filing later removed the fuzz and slight misalignment, and left a nice surface.  I had to block sand the edges of the new panel to even out my hand guided scroll saw, but it worked well.



The assembled panel looks somewhat nondescript with everything turned off.  Both monitors are mounted and the hole in the center is for
the mounting of the Knobster.  I have delayed painting it as there are still a couple of holes to add.



3D printed clips at the bottom space the monitor 3/8 inch off the bottom, and assure its proper placement.  Clips at the top
simply hold the monitor against the panel



Then came the wiring.  Cable management was difficult.  If only my cables were the right length!  The two power supplies for the monitors
are strapped to the bottom frame member the correct distance apart to plug into the double receptacle of an extension cord.  A USB hub
is also strapped similarly and accepts the USB touch screen output from both monitors and the Knobster.  Only 1 USB cable is needed for
 connecting to the computer this way.



This is the first time I have had it all set up in a flyable condition.  I flew it for over an hour and love it!  It is so nice to have large clear instruments
close where they should be!  And I think I have everything I need to see visible now.  If I find something else I need, it is a snap to add it.
The two GPS receivers on the far right do not display yet.  There are two overall connection schemes that allow placing the live image in
the Air Manager screens and I have not decided which to use yet.  It is low priority!  After this picture was taken, I removed them from
the right panel and enlarged the other electronics to mostly fill the screen for now.  Changing is so easy!

Now that I have it all together and working, it is time to take it apart!  I am reasonably confident that I have identified any additional front panel holes needed and put them in.  It is time to paint!  I also ordered some shorter cables to eliminate most of the massive bundles.  While I wait for the paint to harden and the cables to arrive, I have another project described below.


Monitor behavior:

These new monitors are great, but there are a couple of idiosyncrasies  Don't get me wrong, I love these monitors.  As a matter of fact, the original monitors may have acted exactly the same, but I never got far enough with them to know.  The main problem is with the on/off switch.  The monitor does not switch between standby and on when there is a video signal.  You must manually turn on the monitor when ready to use it.  Probably the primary reason for this is each monitor contains an internal battery capable of operating it for about 6 hours.  This is a great feature for which I have no current use.  I was initially afraid that I would have to always turn them off when finished or chance draining the batteries, but found out that after one minute of no signal, they do turn off automatically.

The monitors also have an interesting feature.  There is a hole through the monitor in the lower right corner designed so you can stick a pen or pencil through to use as an impromptu stand.  This hole also is surrounded by clear plastic which lights up when the power is on.  This will all tie together soon, trust me.  Another annoyance for my use is that the power button is on the lower rear of the monitor right next to the illuminated prop-up hole, hard to reach with my mounting system.

With these facts in mind, I set about to design a front panel on-off switch for the monitors.  After several rough design thoughts, I arrived at a plan to have a plexiglass rod pass through the front panel, through the prop-up hole and press on one end of a pivoting bar.  The other end of this bar would press on the power button.  A benefit of this plan is that in passing through the illuminated hole, the clear rod picks up enough illumination to provide an indication at the front panel when the power is on.  After I designed all the pieces and printed them, I put it all together and wonder of all wonders, it works great!


Here is the power on/off mechanism:  The plexiglass rod comes from the front panel through the hole in the corner of the monitor.  It fits into
a small printed clevis attached to the left of the pivot bar.  The bar is free to swing around the screw in its middle, and as it rotates, it presses
the power button on its right.  Actually the bar can only pivot a few degrees, as at rest it is spring loaded against a stop block, and when pressed,
it can only rotate by the short travel of the power button.  The base of this mechanism is a retainer for mounting the monitor, having a shelf
to hold it up in light contact with the top frame, and a retaining lip to keep the monitor from moving back or left, similar to the block on the left.



Each monitor has a small power button which is the end of the plexiglass rod.  Here you can see that it glows blue because the power is on.
This light turns to red when there is a video signal present.



Computer connection changes:

After viewing a number of Youtube videos and reading articles talking about the frame rate degradation caused by each additional monitor connected through Xplane-11, I decided I would need to use my secondary computer to run the Air Manager software and to drive the two touch screen displays, letting my primary computer run Xplane and drive the 3 main monitors.  This worked great!  Air Manager and Xplane automatically connect to each other through my home network and work flawlessly together.  The problems I had are logistical.  I had monitor and control cables running back and forth, I was always grabbing the mouse for the wrong computer to make a change, and it was just generally confusing.  I was not willing to dedicate my 2nd computer only to the simulator, nor to even move it to be closer to my primary one.  I was hesitant to just experiment with various setups, as Air Manager is tied to a specific computer and will allow only 3 changes to a different computer during the lifetime of the license.

Before even being able to consider moving Air Manager to my main computer, I had to see if the system could drive 5 monitors.  My graphics card will drive 4 monitors.  If I had no graphics card and used the integrated graphics capability contained in the CPU, I could drive 3 monitors.  Usually, installing a discrete graphics card will automatically disable the integrated graphics.  Again I researched and experimented.  I found a BIOS setting called Primary Graphics Adapter.  It had 2 choices:  PCI Express and Onboard.  I tried each, and by selecting the Onboard I was able to drive my 5 monitors, but with problems. 

It turns out that this was not the correct setting, as having the integrated graphics as the primary caused several glitches, not the least of which was there was no way to enter the BIOS unless an active monitor was attached to the Integrated port.  I then saw a Youtube video by Michael Brown (he owns X-Force PC which does product support for and is very close to X-Plane, but is not directly associated), specifically on setting up for more than 4 monitors on an Asrock board, such as mine.  What I had not spotted was another entry which you had to scroll down to bring it up to the screen.  This setting was IGPU Multi Monitor.  By setting this to Enabled and leaving the earlier entry set to PCI Express, all seems to be fine.  No longer are the 27 inch monitors switching place in the monitor layout when I connect and disconnect the touch screen ones, and the BIOS shows up on one of my main monitors.  Thank you Michael!  For reference the settings for Asrock boards are as follows:
  1. Open the BIOS (actually UEFI)
  2. Switch to the Advanced screen
  3. Move to the Advanced tab
  4. Click on Chipset Configuration
  5. Verify that Primary Graphics Adapter is on PCI Express
  6. Scroll down to bring up entries below the screen to IGPU Multi-Monitor and set to Enabled
  7. Exit and save your changes
I then experimented using the Air Manager free trial demo.  I realized that this should at least give me an idea of the degradation I would see driving all 5 monitors from my primary computer. The demo only allows a single panel of the 6 basic instruments, and no obvious way of displaying them on both monitors.  I then discovered that I could run 2 instances of Air Manager with each feeding a different monitor.  Using this setup and running the released version of Xplane, my performance dropped from almost 40 frames per second to the low 30's.  Allowing for the added load of flying in areas with dense scenery, that would probably drop to the high 20's, not ideal, but probably marginally OK.  I then tried their beta version using the Vulcan graphics driver instead of the previously used OpenGL (the software that converts the logic into video signals).  Most users are raving about the increased performance, seeing a frame rate increase of 50 to 100% with this change.  Xplane is currently in the 13th beta version.  I have had no problems using it and it is only getting better.  Using the beta version and 5 monitors, I am getting frame rates in the high 40's to low 50's!  This is great!  Running the beta version with just my 3 monitors I have been getting frame rates in the mid 50's.  I then, with all 5 monitors tried flying around LAX, which has very high density scenery, and the frame rate dropped to the low 30's, more of a drop than I expected, but still OK.

These tests convinced me, and I burned one of my 3 allowed "resets" and moved Air Manager.  I now have Xplane and Air Manager both running on my primary computer which drives the three 27 inch main monitors from the high performance graphics card and the 2 low demand touch screen monitors from the much less capable integrated graphics outputs.  The performance after fully installing the software matches the results of my test exactly, and I think will be totally satisfactory.  Thank you Vulcan!  I hope the improved Xplane will be out of beta soon!

The interconnections are simpler now, and using a 6 port USB hub for all the USB connections on the panel, now there are only 3 connections and AC power (and even that is optional, as these monitors include a battery rated for up to 6 hours of use) to be made when setting up the panel.  With the 2 computer system I only used a USB hub for the long run to the 2nd computer, but I could have gotten it down from 6 to 4 connections with another hub.  The primary advantage is the simplicity of connection and use.  A secondary consideration, but a major one was that in order to be able to show the more advanced "glass cockpit" displays, I would have had to buy a second copy of Xplane to run on the 2nd computer (technical issues I won't try to cover here).

Improved Wiring:

As you probably noticed from several pictures back, my wiring was a mess!  I had bundles of wire, to use up the excess length hanging on the back.  I had the two monitor power supply transformers hanging off the back with an extension cord plugged into them, and, although it doesn't show in the picture, the connecting cables ranged up to several feet long.  These were always in the way when trying to stow the panel between uses.

To correct these problems, I did several things:
  1. I designed and printed a box to hold the power supplies for the monitors, and included a removable power cord.
  2. I ordered several new cables that were of more appropriate lengths.
  3. I bought a new 6 port USB hub to replace the 4 port one.
  4. I completely rewired the rear of the panel.


The new power box contains the power supplies for both monitors.  They have been wired using 1/4 inch wide
 spade terminals pressed onto the AC prongs, then protected with shrink sleeving.  They each are connected to a
receptacle which accepts a standard computer power cord.  The transformers are held in place by  printed walls
which prevent any movement.



The wiring is now much cleaner!  The only loop of excess wire is contained inside the power box.  The new USB hub (to the left of center with 3 cables
looping up to plug into it) now will accommodate the yoke and throttle quadrant if desired.  The 3 wires to my computer (2 HDMI's and 1 USB)
are a maximum of 18 inches long, and can be held out of the way for handling with the hook to the left of the power box.


Addition of 8/18/2020:

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 arrives!

The long awaited release of Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 is finally here!  I pre-ordered the program several weeks ago and actually installed it (at least a shell of it) at that time.  Of course every time I tried to open it I received a pop-up window stating that it was too early.

I was actually able to start using it today!  The scenery is beautiful!  The planes fly well, comparable to those in X-Plane 11.  It is a fairly well polished program which has some great points and some not-so-great ones.

My initial observations (and opinions) are:

Great points:
  • Beautiful, real life scenery based on Bing satellite imagery
  • Good selection of initial planes to fly (20, 25, or 30 depending on your version of Flight Simulator)
  • Almost 40,000 airports world wide - accurate, but not highly detailed (but probably equal or better than any other simulator's without 3rd party add-ons)
  • There are 30, 35, or 40 hand crafted airports (depending on your version) with almost total realism
  • Very realistic flight characteristics - over 1000 points aerodynamically are calculated per plane, ground terrain used to calculate local air current disturbances
  • Excellent control of the weather conditions including duplication of the real time weather where you are flying
  • Beautiful cloud representations - better than in any other sim I have seen
  • An easy to use user interface - selectable options for various skill levels
  • An excellent set of cameras (views) available including drone mode
  • A promise of a rich set of future improvements

Neat features that mean little to me personally:
  • Real time weather conditions for the area you are flying.  i.e. - Youtube is full of simulated flights through the recent gulf hurricane
  • Real time aircraft flights - If an airplane is flying over your house, the simulator will show it (limitations apply)
  • Multi-player - many individuals can gather to fly in the same area and all will be seen by everyone.  This is a biggie for many game players, but not for me.

Not so great:
  • No multi-screen support - this is my biggest disappointment, and this alone prevents me from even considering the program as my primary flight simulator.
  • The high-tech glass panels only "mostly" work, but are generally buggy.
  • Autopilot loses control of plane at faster than real time speeds. This is a problem if I want to "fast forward" over boring parts of long flights. (X-Plane does fine)
  • Default setup data is missing on many common peripherals (hand programming of each button or switch, etc. is needed), a one time nuisance  (DONE for my setup 8/19/20)
  • My quadrant doesn't work due to differences in calibration methods (fixable with programming change)  (I FIXED 8/20/20)
  • Will not work with my instrument panel or Air Manager yet  (Air Manager has promised the update soon))
  • Takes over twice the time to start up as X-Plane - almost 4 minutes, plus time to select your flight vs. under 2 + setup for X-Plane.
  • Numerous new-release bugs - frequent updates planned initially
Note of 11/8/2022:

Virtually all of the above problems have now either been fixed or improved.  The latest revision has finally enabled multi-monitor use, the Honeycomb yoke and throttle are now listed and install very easily, an Air Manager upgrade enabled my panel, time to load has dropped by about 50% for both Xplane 11 and Microsoft Flight Simulator.  The program is maturing nicely.


Expected items (facts of life):
  • Mostly new commands to learn
  • Uses a lot of Internet bandwidth and drive space
  • Requires a powerful computer with good graphics capabilities - mine is doing fine

In all fairness to Microsoft, a couple of the above problems will soon be corrected, either by me or by them or one of their vendors.  If MS keeps their promise to keep working and upgrading, hopefully most of the others will be dealt with soon.

The official release of the much hyped program was August 18.  Actually I found in one spot of their literature that it would be released at 9 PM on the 17th.  When I pre-ordered it several weeks ago, they let me install it immediately, but that only took a few seconds so I knew I had not actually installed any more than a loader.  At about 8:30 on the 17th I tried to open it and still got the now familiar window stating "You are too early!"  At about 9:05 I got right in and started a fairly long sequence of events.  After a few screens needing my input, it started downloading 95.15 Gigabytes of program data.  At just about midnight it finished!  I am 4 days into this months Internet quota and have already used 34% of it!  (I hate quotas!)  I was impressed with the download, as for most of the time I was watching it, it was downloading at a steady 120 Mb/sec.  My service is spec'd at 100 Mb/sec.  It did periodically slow down to almost nothing while decompressing the files.  Also, I'm sure watching streaming videos in the other room during much of the download didn't help the speed any!

The next morning, after some mandatory errands, I tackled installing my yoke, pedals, and quadrant, with far less success than I had in a similar time on Xplane 11.  I ended up postponing this effort and installed only my original CH yoke, which includes a throttle.  This was the simplest setup I could fly.  I boned up on some of the different commands this program has and went flying.  Of course the first thing was to find my house!  I am not disappointed!  Here are a few screenshots flying around in Prescott, and one in Escondido, CA. 

  
Looking down on my neighborhood, it looks beautiful, and very accurate (as it was several years ago when the satellite images were taken).  However
when you get close you can see some of the compromises the artificial intelligence engine uses to change a single view 2D picture into a 3D object.
 Considering that they did this to every spot on the planet, I think they did very well!  A few areas of the Earth are created using true 3D images,
 obtained using photogrammetry.  (taking multiple pictures from different directions and combining them into a 3D image) and result in much better
closeup pictures.



This view of my church, the Prescott United Methodist Church looks like a photograph!  OK, there are a couple of glitches in the parking lot
which appear to be poorly modeled cars.



I also (very quickly) flew to Escondido, CA and looked at my previous home.  In the last 15
years, the subsequent owners have added a deck and changed the landscaping, but it looks good!



To find my house (or any other place) putting in a pair of latitude/longitude coordinates and flying to them would have been easy, but Microsoft doesn't give you a way to do that.  A Youtube presenter who uses the screen name Squirrel, has made a very helpful series of 5 (10 now, two weeks later) tutorials on getting starting with the sim, and explains a way to fly to a coordinate.  Basically, you look for a nearby waypoint, and edit the two files associated with it substituting your own coordinates, and a new waypoint name. Using the GPS receiver (which I still need to learn) you then just fly there.  My method so far is just looking for familiar visual landmarks and working my way to my target location from there. This is much harder than it sounds, or than I thought it would be.  I found my current house this way without too much trouble, but for my old Escodido home, I don't think I would have ever found it without Google Earth to use for comparison!  I probably should have used Bing, as that is what all the scenery is derived from!

Note of 9/6/2020:  Microsoft does actually give you a somewhat roundabout way to fly, actually be transported, to a pair of coordinates.  They have a developer's mode which you have to open, then there is the option of typing in your lat and lon values.  When you exit, the plane is paused and the scenery below merges into the desired location.  This is still a somewhat non-obvious procedure, but is much better than having to edit a pair of files!  Developer's mode also allows you to change airplanes in mid-flight!

 There are several cameras associated with this simulator.  A camera is really just your view.  The cockpit camera gives you all the views of the instruments and views around and out of the plane, and is the normal one used during flying.  An external camera can be set to follow your plane and show it from the rear.  You can actually fly using this camera as they give you a "heads up view" of the basic instruments, superimposed on the screen.  This camera can also be positioned to the left, to the right, to the top, or in front, always looking at the plane.  There are additional slots for several custom camera views.

They also give you cameras attached to the wing tips looking in, the tail looking forward, under the tail looking forward, and a couple others.  These are fixed and you cannot customize them.

My favorite camera is the drone camera.  When you activate this, it starts with the same view as the rear view of the external camera, the difference is that you can fly it from there.  Using a totally non-intuitive selection of keyboard keys, you can fly forward, back, sideways, rotate, tilt up or down, and fly up or down.  My procedure (during my total flight time of slightly over an hour) is to fly the plane close to my target area and pause it.  It now just hovers in place and I turn on (launch?) the drone camera.  I then fly it to the area I want to investigate closely and take my shots using Greenshot, a screen capture utility.

I have a LOT to learn about doing a proper installation of my peripherals and just flying with it.  I did find a listing of the keyboard shortcuts which once I copy and pasted into Word wanted 13 pages to  print.  After I adjusted font sizes, line spacing, margins, and made 2 columns, I got it down to 3 pages.

 Immediate Improvements:

The first problem that I attacked was my non-functioning throttle quadrant.  When I designed it I had no industry specifications to follow, I just used X-plane to determine what I needed.  X-plane uses a one time calibration routine to take the signals from your peripherals and scale them to exactly produce the full range digital numbers.  I designed the quadrant to output less than a full range to allow proper later calibration.  Microsoft has no calibration routine and assumes that your peripheral will output a precise range of numbers and assumes that is full range.  Knowing this, it was a fairly simple software change to have the quadrant internally scale its full range of movement to output precisely that full range of numbers.  It is now fully operational and works well with the new simulator, as well as with X-plane.

Since I am so impressed with the capabilities of the drone camera, I wanted to make it easier to use.  Something I found on the Internet suggested using an X-box controller for the drone.  I don't have one of those, but somewhere I had picked up a somewhat similar Wingman controller.  I was able to program the various controls on this to perform all the needed functions for flying the drone camera, and now using that controller it is much easier to fly the drone where ever I desire.  It is also easy to avoid accidentally hitting the key which immediately returns the drone to the aircraft!  Imagine you have spent a considerable amount of time picking your way from street to street, making assumptions when they are tree covered, but you think you are getting close, when all of a sudden you are transported back to the starting point all because you accidentally hit the key next to the one you wanted!  Don't ask me why I think this is important! 

As it stands at this point, I have all my proper flight controls operational again, but I am limited to one monitor to display everything.  This alone relegates this simulator to being my secondary one.  I really enjoy having my three monitors giving me about 180 degrees of view and my additional instrument panel so the main monitors only have to show me the outside view.  I have tried stretching the view to cover my 3 monitors, but it is not acceptable.  While it does truly add to the area covered (as opposed to just stretching the same view), there is so much distortion at the edge that it just won't do.  For instance if there is a parked airplane near the edge of the view, the outside wing looks about 2 to 3 times the length of the inside wing and as your plane moves forward, items in the two outside monitors continually stretch as they approach the edge of the monitor.  The general consensus of the early adopters is that they expect Microsoft will gradually add the missing options, but only time will tell. 

I should, before long, regain my ability to use my touch screen instrument panel.  It actually is available now if I use the public beta release and make a minor edit for each instrument I use.  Air Manager has stated that Microsoft is sending them the final specs to allow them to upgrade for the release version, and in September (today is August 30), the edits will no longer be required.  Meanwhile, I will continue flying what I have and enjoy every minute of it!

Los Angeles International airport (LAX) is one of the handcrafted airports.  Here we are approaching on runway 25 right.



Overflying LAX gives us this view.  The handcrafted airports contain every detail.  Not only is each building made just like the original, but there are
service trucks, trucks delivering in-flight food (who gets that anymore?), fueling trucks, etc. driving around and attending to aircraft. When a  plane is ready
to depart, the push-back tug hooks up and pushes them out to where they can continue on their own..

Conclusion:

This has been a fun project, occupying much more of my Covid-at-home time than I expected, and ending up with a much more elaborate simulator than I ever planned!  I am very pleased with the results and using the small amount of flight time I have put in during the build process as a measure, I can anticipate many more hours of pure enjoyment along with periods of high frustration.  I really seem to have lost some of my flying skills by not doing any flying for the last 43.5 years!  I cannot understand that!  My last logbook entry was December 1976.

As far as the Microsoft Flight Simulator is concerned, it is an incredible product.  Its scenery alone is worth the price of admission, but the shortcomings, such as support for only one monitor,  prevent it from becoming my main simulator.  This may or may not change with time!

It's time to go flying!



Go to part 2 to see the latest additions and modifications to my flight simulator:

R. S. Mason  July 2020