Flight Sim Panel

Welcome to the Flight Sim Panel project.

Motivation

You like flight simulations?
But neither do you like to learn keyboard shortcuts for all the switches in the planes?
Nor do you like to "look" in the virtual cockpit to click virtual buttons with the mouse?
Does not feel right, right?
We have to have real keys for real! You do not agree? Then you are out I am afraid ...

This project is about having a flight sim panel with all (or at least most) keys required to run a plane in the simulator.
Of course every plane has its own layout and of course we will not able to match any real switch layout. Still it will have most of the keys in logical position. Will you be able to learn where all the switches and gauges are in "your" plane? Unlikely, but you will be able to use the switches consistent through all the supported simulators and you will neither have to use your keyboard nor search for virtual switches.
So the goal is to have a panel for a twin engine.
(You will be able to fly single engines as well, you just have to ignore some of the buttons. But most of the functionality is the same anyways.)
Mentioned this, please do not expect a panel for jet, like an A320 (which I like very much nonetheless), it's about dual piston engine planes. (However, the panel will support many of the jets as well, like the flight control unit (FCU)/"auto pilot" or the radio stack, but it will not feel that natural.)

Right now the panel consists of the radio stack only. A picture is shown here. The FCU/"auto pilot" and the switch panel are designed already, but have not been built to far. So this is work in progress.

So why do I show this anyway, as it is still in progress? I got some requests from friends to make this project available for them as well. So here we are ...

Disclaimer

This is a private project. It works for me as described below. You have to work with hardware which is connected to your PC. This always has the potential to damage your PC. So I am not responsible for any damage created by following the description below.
The description will mentions tool I use in order to get this project done. I did not get any free copies or got payed by any of the tools/companies mentioned below.

Overview

The Flight Sim Panel consists of three panels.

  • The FCU (some would call it the autopilot) to control the auto pilot, like the hight to be held in the
  • The Radio Stack (with some more features like ADF and the transponder)
  • The Switch box (for gear/flaps/motor start/...)
and a rack to mount all the panels. (And all the software and the 3D files for your 3D printer to get this project done.)

Prerequisites

You have to have one of the supported flight simulations:

  • XPlane
  • FSX
  • Microsoft FlightSimluator 2020
In addition you have to have AirManager, which will interface the panel and the simulators So AirManager is the glue which connects this panels to the sims mentioned above.
Why use AirManager? I tried another solution which I programmed directly in python. This solution worked for FSX only. With AirManager you can run the panel on all the other sims as well. (Well you have to adapt the source code used in AirManager to serve all sims, but with the logic implemented only once this is a minor effort.)
In addition AirManager is a pretty cool tool to create panels to be run (ideally on a touch screen). This away you can have all gauges (in the display) and the switches (like in this project) be seperated from the used sim. So you will always have the same look and feel independent of the underlying sim. Again, this might not reflect a real world gauge layout, but you can get as close as you wish. (The hardware switches are maybe not supposed to be used that heavily as in this project, but it works very well connecting the switches with the sim.)

Resources

The SW and the design files for 3D printing can be found here.

Flight Control unit Panel

Here I will explain the details of the FCU Panel.

Radio Stack Panel

Here I will explain the details of the radio stack.

Overview

3D Printing

Wiring

Software

Switch Panel

Here I will explain the details of the switch stack.

The Rack

Here I will explain the details of the rack, which holds all of the upper mentioned panels.