101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

[101-Wolf]

Hi All,


My name is Andre, I live in Ottawa, Ontario Canada and I  started flying FalconAF a few years back. After browsing on the net, I found the 101 QAF, joined and now fly with them. I'm almost done my qualif but my pit is talking more of my time than I ever imagined.

I started with building an AB Mk2 from the plans found on the net. I flew this with "old" Thrustmaster F22 and TQS borrowed from my brother. After attending my first LAN with the QAF boys I got "hooked". I HAD to have a Cougar!

I then over the course of several month, acquired a Cougar and a TrackIR4.
I then added a programmable keyboard (12x10 keys) to my cockpit. This keyboard took care of most of my inputs. The only problem was that there was no indications as to where the key was at in the sim... There must be a better way I tought...  BINGO!! A touchscreen would do!

Well, after 1 year of programming/hacking/testing, I got my pit pretty much functional.
It has three 15" touchscreen that are hooked up to there own computer. They display all the panels, I use the excellent proggie FalconGauges to display the gauges, a homemade proggie to turn on/off all the indicators (Every light that is functional in shared mem is displayed in my pit) and I will soon integrate MFDExtractor in it.
I use VNC to send the keypress to the main computer. This enables me to not send the mouse mouvement to Falcon (The touchscreens are a "mouse" as far as the comps are concern....). This caused some problems when the touchscreens where on the main as the views were changing when I pressed on them... At this point I also use FalconGlass client/server to bring the shared mem to my cockpit machine.  This will probably change when Lightning or Eric publish a new one....

Anyway here is a few pics of my setup:

Overall view

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel A

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel B

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel C and D Left

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel D Main with minimised ICP

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel D Main with ICP

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel D and E

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel D Right and Comms

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel G

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

Panel H

101-Wolf's intro and glass pit..

All bitmaps are taken from the F-16 posters found on xflight.de
I took all buttons, rotaries, toggles etc and with the help of photoshop, created bitmaps showing all there positions in order to be used with the POS software that support the on screen "keyboard"
This was the longest and most boring part!...

Anyway, it does not compare to some of the pits found here but it is functional and relatively cheap..  Hope you like it...


Cheers,
101-Wolf

[101-douxx]

Salut Andre!
About time!?!

Welcome aboard my friend, and since your pit is almost finish...
Can you at last finished your formation at our 101ECV???

Your pit is great and simple, but the most important thing... very functionnal!
Great work!

Now, I'll have to finish mine so we can have a great flight on our next LAN.
Keep it up!
Stephane.

[Ka-Bar03]

Now that's neat!

Welcome!

[zypo]

Welcome on board Andre !
Nice to see another 101 ECV pilot here...

Cheers
zypo

[lightning]

That's a very cool approach, 100% glass.  So many advantages and not many drawbacks.

[101-Wolf]

Thanks you everyone.

@101-Douxx  .I'll see you up there soon to complete this loooong overdue formation.   

@Lightning..  Nothing would be possible without guys like you and Eric that create those wonderful applications! My pit would not be what it is without FalconGauges, FalconGlass and MFDExtractor! 

Cheers,
101-Wolf

[101-Wolf]

Here is the pit as it was in Lachute Qc Canada's virtual fly-in.
In french.. but it gives you an idea anyway..
Thanks to my friend Tuvok for the video!

#Invalid YouTube Link#

[heines]

that's a really cool glass cockpit

love the touchscreen idea 

would be cool to build a pit and build the touchscreens in the consoles 

take care 

[101-douxx]

What I really like about this setup is the maintenance level...

Not much of it!
And that's priceless!

We had a great show, et il faisait tr?s tr?s chaud....

Translation, it was freakin HOT in that hangar!!!!