DIY Flight SIM Cockpit

grabcad

Update: Added bass shakers to the seat. (See Cockpit_Updated)This is a DIY Sim Cockpit constructed from 3060 Extruded Aluminum specific for using the Thrustmaster Hotas Throttle, Stick and Rudder in Virtual Reality. The cockpit is located about 15 feet from my gaming PC and for clean wire routing in my house coupled with the limitations of HDMI over long spans and to reduce the likelihood of introducing latency into the Virtual Reality, I used fiberoptic HDMI cables which are a bit pricey. The primary purpose of this cockpit is to fly fighter aircraft in DCS (Digital Combat Systems) for a more immersive experience with a traditional F18 style cockpit layout and center stick and not the lame feeling of flying a fighter aircraft in an office chair with my stick mounted to my desk. The extruded aluminum was purchased through Parco-Inc.com and cut on a chop saw with a carbide blade. I bought 4 sections of extruded aluminum and have included a cut list file showing what parts are cut from which sections of aluminum to keep the project lean with very little left over material. In other words, if you make this…………measure 45 times before cutting once and don’t F-up. Or, you’ll be buying more. The aluminum sheet for the floor pan was cut to size with a standard circular saw again with a carbide disk. All corner gussets, corner brackets, 6mm hardware (bolts, washers, lock washers and T-nuts were sourced from Amazon. You will need a 3D printer and be vary capable with it or know someone that has a printer as this is heavily laden with random 3D printed parts, specifically the relocation of the Hotas stick to a more traditional location. It was 10 times cheaper for me to design and print my own extension than to source it from the interwebs. Its quite a project but extremely fun to build and the immersion now with flying is almost an out of body experience and like you’re really in the jet (minus the G hits).Its not cheap but is SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than some of the insanely detailed full cockpits available from Europe. I modeled everything in this except the racing seat, keyboard and mouse on the right-side fold up mouse tray. However, I sourced those files from Grabcad and can’t for the life of me remember who or where to give proper credit for those designs. If you have questions feel free to hit me up at zigaitisna@gmail.com