New here, old to the hobby

[Hoorf]

Greetings. I know, weird name, but it seemed like the thing to do. Thanks for putting up with me this far, hope we can learn a lot from one another.

I've been flying the virtual skies with FS2004 for 6 years now. In that time, I've managed to graduate from a Cessna 172 up to the 757, complete with VFR, IFR, night and inclement weather experience. It's been a fun ride, and along the way I managed to learn a great deal about scenery manipulation, airport modification and various other goodies, largely under the tutelage of the late, great David "Opa" Marshall, whose personal attention and assistance I will be forever grateful for. So far, the rig is as follows: Saitek Cessna gear (yoke, pedals, trim wheel), two Saitek throttle quadrants with homemade throttle/spoiler/flap levers (the throttles have functioning reverser levers and an autothrottle disconnect) and one homemade 747 gear retract lever/autobrake subpanel. Next to be made is the autopilot panel. This has been hooked up to a HP Pavilion tower with Intel Core2 Duo (2.16GHz), NVidia GeForce card (256 MB), 4BG RAM and a very nice Dell LCD monitor, which was new in 2008 and apparently is still in demand today (bought for only $10!). The tower was cleaned out/up to be no-frills, Flight-Sim-dedicated, so no background trash to ruin the fun. I currently type this on my Dell, which was retired from many years of faithful duty in Flight Sim.

Favorite aircraft to fly: Q400, any Boeing twin (someday, the 777), just about any RJ, and, on odd occasion, the RNLAF F-16 "J-015". On the not-so-busy days, the Beechcraft Baron 58TC or the KingAir 350 are just fine. And the trusty 172 still gets some local activity. Biggest flight achievement thus far: circumnavigating the globe in a Dash8-100, completed after 2 weeks. Still having a ball with this.

Current goals: (1)to get a Bodnar BBI-32 card to finish my autopilot panel, (2) to configure and install my homemade "matrix board", which allows for the use of switches in my homemade gear to interact with FSUIPC, by means of a salvaged circuit board from an old USB keyboard and 32 8-pin female headers as a 'switchboard' of sorts. I'll inform as I go regarding progress on that.

Anyhoo...thanks for having me here! Great being had!

[fsx-cockpit]

Hi, welcome!
Can you post some pictures? I am interested on your work on panels!!!
CU Chris

[Hoorf]

Hi, welcome!
Can you post some pictures? I am interested on your work on panels!!!
CU Chris

I'll do the best I can. The panel stuff isn't the best, but it's functional. The biggest impediment to everything lately has been spending a lot of time with my daughter & granddaughters...plus the weather here's been colder than usual, with small, annoying crises arising from it. See what I can do...and thanks for the welcome!

[Geremy Britton]

Whats the software that allows you to work your way up, is it 'Airline Pilot' ?

[Hoorf]

Here's the homemade stuff I mentioned...

My "matrix board"...


My throttle levers...


And, finally, the quadrant with custom-made knobs and said levers...


That's it for now, more to come.

[Hoorf]

Whats the software that allows you to work your way up, is it 'Airline Pilot' ?

I worked my way up the hard way: trial & error, lots of crashing, lots of advice from my pilot dad & friends...just took a long time is all, but was worth it. BTW, just posted here a bit ago but because of moderation, the images will have to wait until a mod approves. Hope you like 'em...