Our squadron flight sim facilities are a mess (literally and metaphorically!). I have been asked to try and create something from the rubble, so to speak! Unfortunately the staff member who sourced and set up our kit is no longer with us, which doesn’t help!
As always, funds are limited, but we are hoping to build our own “plywood bomber” (actually a mocked up Grob Tutor cockpit). The question is do we need new software and hardware or can we make something from what we have with, say, 3 screens?
If the answer is yes, then can anyone tell me where I can also find out “how”? The learning curve for me or any of the staff if we have to start from scratch will delay any solution by years, literally! We need to pick the brains of those who have already done it!
We currently have 6 x PCs running MS FlightSim X, Steam Edition (I understand Steam enables interaction between the sims, eg formation flying or dogfighting, but we are light years away from understanding how to set that up). We also have mostly Logitech hardware, yokes, throttle quadrants, rudder pedals etc.
With - it seems - fewer and fewer opportunities to get in the air for real, and better and better computational power for simulators, we be,Evie it is worth trying to get something worthwhile, but obviously funding is the big factor.
I would love to here from anyone at a squadron that feels they have a good setup which we could replicate.
Well, that’s the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS for the main controls, available commercially, albeit with an extension stick and modified base. I particularly like the way the arrow sticker which shows which way to align the stick handle to lock it into place is still on it
With some woodworking skills, a similar commercial pedal set and the required PC / VR headset, that wouldn’t be too hard to put together for somewhere around £3K, depending on how Gucci you want the seat. Expensive, but not out of reach.
Controversially, I don’t see why they don’t scrap some of the AEF programme, given (a) how many problems it has and (b) its inequality in provision to all. Then spend the money on kit like that for every squadron. Focus AEF on gliding and at camps instead. Especially as it is realistic to assume that within the lifetime of the cadets, remote and even automated flying is likely to become prevalent.
Has anyone tried out one of the micro PCs built around the AMD APUs? These are going for just over £300 online with an AMD 5500U (lowest end APU I think), 16GB RAM and NVME storage. If they work they could be an option for units with smaller budgets or for building into a rig as above.
An APU wouldn’t really be sufficient for anything other than roblox or minecraft unfortunately. Definitely don’t meet minimum sys reqs for most flight sims unfortunately.
