Build Your Own Flight Simulator
As I sit here on a wet, gloomy November afternoon, dreaming of soaring around the beautiful blue skies of the great Pacific Northwest, I think that wouldn't be nice to sit down in my own airplane in the basement. Let's build a simulator, I decided!
Building a flight simulator for home use is a fantastic way to enhance your flying skills. Here are a few key benefits:
Procedural Practice: A simulator allows you to drill specific procedures—such as checklists, navigation, and approach protocols—without the pressure of real flight. This builds muscle memory for cockpit flows and improves familiarity with avionics and systems, making you more efficient and precise in the air.
Instrument Proficiency: For IFR-rated pilots, simulators are invaluable for maintaining currency and sharpness. You can practice instrument approaches, holds, and cross-country navigation under a wide range of conditions, from night flying to challenging weather, without needing actual IFR conditions.
Scenario-Based Training: Home simulators allow you to create and practice emergency situations, like engine failures, unexpected weather, or system malfunctions. Practicing these scenarios helps you build a calm, methodical response to stress and teaches you to troubleshoot effectively in critical situations.
Aeronautical Decision-Making (ADM): Simulators give you a controlled environment to develop decision-making skills. You can experiment with “what-if” situations, such as fuel mismanagement, delayed decision-making in weather diversions, or navigation issues, and see the outcomes in real-time.
Cost Efficiency: While flight hours can add up quickly, simulators provide a cost-effective way to practice. Regular simulator sessions can be a valuable supplement to in-air training, allowing you to focus your paid flight hours on areas where in-air experience is essential.
Navigation and Situational Awareness: Simulators often come with detailed GPS and navigational features. Practicing these in simulated environments can make you much faster and more confident when planning routes, setting up holds, and dealing with complex airspace in real flight.
So let's get started! Here are my plans: There are two great software packages recommended for in-home flight simulators; Microsoft Flight Simulator and X-Plane 12. MSFS is available on a subscription basis and not available for Mac. X-Plane 12 is a digital download with a free trial, costing $80 in both Mac and Windows. To run the software, both software websites have recommendations on computer capacity and speed. I'm a long-time Mac guy, so here's how I'm going to build my cockpit.
I'll start with my computer. Apple just introduced their new Mac Mini with an incredibly powerful M4 chip that will take up a tiny 6" x 6" footprint behind the scenes in my plane. It will run X-plane and all the devices in the cockpit for a low price of $599. I've got several old Mac keyboards and mice, so unless the new Mini needs special accessories, I'll just use them for programming purposes.
Next, I need a monitor. The cockpit of our Mooney is 44" wide so to replicate that in my simulator, I'll go with a 50" class monitor that is 44" wide and just $209. The software allows you to pan the screen up, down, right and left with a simple toggle on the flight controls so you can use the one monitor to view those various views. However, to get an even more immersive experience, I may add two more monitors. Flight simulation experts recommend angling the side monitors approximately 140º from the center monitor. The software can then be configured to allow for a full 180º visual experience.
Now for flight controls; I'll need a yoke, a throttle quadrant and rudder pedals. I'll want these to be as similar to our Mooney as possible, so after comparing many different models I've settled on the Honeycomb Alpha yoke, which comes in at just $280. This yoke has several thumb switches and buttons that can be programmed to function just like the thumb controls on our plane. It has dual master and avionics switches on the left and on the right is the simulated mag/starter switch. I wish this was on the left as well but you only touch that at the beginning and end of the flight so I'll compromise on that. The Alpha also has a bank of light switches on the left for simulating the lighting flow for takeoffs and landings.
Most Mooney's have a throttle quadrant that has the three knobs -- throttle, prop and idle cutoff. Honeycomb's throttle quadrant (Bravo) has levers that were only used on a few versions of Mooney, so I shopped around and found this version of the equipment that also includes a flaps lever style switch and a trim wheel. It would be nice if the trim wheel could be located to the right of the pilot's seat, but this one seems to fit the bill, and is $200, where the Honeycomb Bravo is closer to $300.
And for rudder controls I elected to go with the Thrustmaster TFRP for $130. I figure that the rudder pedals can be fairly elementary as long as they control yaw and braking so a higher end set is probably not necessary.
I plan to build a "cockpit" that will mount all of these devices in a similar a fashion to that in our plane. In a Mooney, you sit fairly close to the floor like in a sports car. So rather than using a desk or gaming chair, I looked on Ebay and found a used sports car seat that replicates the sliding functions of a Mooney seat for around $100. I'll bolt this to the floor of my cockpit and get in almost like climbing into the plane.
Now, for the glare shield and instrument panel. I'll build this out of light weight materials, perhaps 1/4" Masonite and some 1x2's. Rather than hunting for and compromising on simulator gauges, I plan to use Air Manager for the instruments. This software is fully customizable to mirror the panel of just about any plane. I'll run the software on two $63 touch screen monitors in the panel. One will have the 6-pack of steam gauges plus other gauges and gear control knob, and the one on the right will display radio, transponder, and nav equipment plus the engine monitor, tachometer and manifold pressure gauges. Any of the gauges that have adjustable knobs can be controlled by touching them and rotating your finger around them. But for a more realistic sensation, Air Manager makes a device called Knobster that has an outer and inner knob very similar to the knobs on most radios. I'll mount this between the touch screen monitors, so when I want to adjust the altimeter, I'll touch the display for that and rotate the Knobster and the displayed barometer setting with go up or down accordingly. Same thing with all the other knobs on the screen.
With these monitors for the instrument panel I'll be able to keep the panel off the larger monitors and get a more lifelike experience of looking over the glareshield at blue skies and white mountains as I prepare to land at Roche Harbor for lunch at the Hotel de Haro.
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