Hello from ANOTHER South African

Hi All

I live in South Africa - Midrand to be precise. Perhaps other SA simmers can contact me - i have some questions (LOL) for those building cockpits!

I am new here but not new to flight-simming - i guess. I remember the first time i flew a flight sim - i think it was MS very first FS which booted off a floppy disk and I used it on a green screen grrrrrrrr... HOW far things have progressed.

However, even though i have mainly uses FS95/98 and up to FSX with accel expansion I have never attempted building a cockpit or part of one. Let me stress that I guess the biggest spanner in starting is costs of having to import everything.

I have done a lot of searches and reading on MANY sites and I am still lost in terms of what I should start with. Let me say that I am really, only, interested in, at this time, with building a 737AP panel with Heading, Course, APA, APP etc switches and rotaries. I would typically intend it to be "generic" and to be used, at times, in a cessna for example to change AP settings - altitude etc - hope i made sense. I just got another 17" CRT that i would used for something but primarily use a 19" LCD.

I love the 737 though also fly the 747 a lot on short hauls. I do find myself flying a lot of overseas trips purely for the scenery. SA scenery is (greatly) lacking in reality or near-reality feel.

What I would like if some SA guys couild let me know where, if locally at all, they get their equipment. I was retrenched in January so cahs is VERY tight and I would like to be able to even buy boards and or kits and assemble myself. I have many tools, excluding CNC, that I could use to build the panel etc. I am, however, no programmer when it needs it i.e. FSBus stuff in C++.

Anyway, expect a LOT of stupid questions!!!