@Bombs: I love that joystick mount. where is it sold? How much?
My "cockpit" looks really ugly but it can be .... interesting (if you're that kind of person), so I added some explanations (thanks god im a graphomaniac, right? ....er ... right??)
Legend:
1 - anchoring system out of an old headset
2 - MS Sidewinder FF2 with anti-sweat grip out of an old T-shirt
3 - A regular (fairly big) screw holds the diagonal anchoring bar in place. It doesnt actually pierce the desk, it goes between the sliding desktop and the side, and it can be easily removed with one hand when the joystick is not in place
4 - Piece of sponge tightly packed with a cloth, keeps the diagonal bar from moving back and forth
5 - Pall Malls. Whatever. Who the hell wants to be 90 anyway (South Park)
6 - This is another piece from the same sponge, on top of a piece of junk that comes from... somewhere, that holds in place a piece of cardboard. The cardboard opens like a book when IL-2 isnt in use. This is my fix to the "flashing box bug" that still appears on triple head systems when using Perfect mode (they never fixed... modders? Anyone?) I can easily live with a black square in a corner, but a *flashing* red square is a bit too much, hence the better-than-a-kick-in-the-nuts-anyway kind of fix.
7 - Track IR camera is up here. (T-IR4 camera with T-IR 5 software)
8 - one of the surround speakers (up) and the surround amp (down). bran El-Cheapo (some $60 for a 5+1 with subwoofer some 3 years ago.... needs replacement but not so badly)
9 - bottom side of a tipped-over 5-port "el-cheapo" hub/switch, part of my 4-machine home mostly *nix LAN with one machine dual booting WinXP 32 pro for gaming: a highly modified bare-bones system, basically, graphics, sounds, and network. That's it. No useless services, no unused programs, no invasive "security" (Avast + Win Firewall + Ghostwall, those get the job done without asking for a lot of user input: all you need is to configure them properly, once.)
10 - Over 2 year old home assembled box with Asus P5N, Core2 Duo @ 2.66GhZ, 4x 1GB 800MhZ RAM (only 3.2GB used under Win32... more than enough), X-Fi Xtreme Gamer sound and nVidia 9800GT + triple heard... start showing its age, maybe mobo+CPU+RAM upgrade in January and nVidia series 200 later?
11 - this is the missing drawer that you can see... er that you *can't" see on the other side ( by # 1), now acting as monitor support. The right-hand side monitor rests in a thin wooden "plank" (what's that called? A ...mini-plank thing). The monitor's weight is balanced by the weight of culture: a pile of books on the back. All the monitors have been modified: the supports have been removed to allow lower mount. They are supported by some more of my "inventions" on the back sides instead of their original bases/supports)
12 - additional keyboard that acts as "panel", some keys have been covered with pieces of plastic boxes and other keys have been marked as "fire extinguisher", "auto prop", "Prop feathering", etc.
13 - Modified CH Throttle quadrant: when 4.09 was due out I had understood as if it would include dual throttles so I made the last modifications to the 6-slider throttle (hope I get to actually use the dual throttle thingy before I die...). Form right to left: rudder trim and aileron trim (red) elevator trim (black) dual throttles (black/white, modified), prop pitch (blue). I use the small throttle slider on the joystick base for the flaps.
14 - Arms of my armchair. I could I be an "armchair pilot" if I didnt use an actual armchair? I throw a bed sheet over the armchair (washing a sheet (in a washing machine) is way easier that cleaning an armchair)
15 - one side of one pedal of my CH Pro pedals. An old router on the right and 2 old floppy drives on the left side hold the base in place. A similar system is used on the back side.
16 - The joystick support is made out of one of the bases/supports that originally came with the monitors, the base is upside-down and supports the stick. It has been fixed to a construction of metal tubes that were originally from some office furniture (you can see a couple of small wheels around the "thing"
... and OK, as I said it doesnt look like much but it gets the job done. Hope I inspired someone with my "redneck engineering"
(Note: it's not dust, it's cigarettes ash)
[EDIT] came to edit some typos (and surely missed some), I noticed that I didnt tell how I made the dual throttle thing: the upper handles are the two halves of an old Logitech Attack3, sewed at half length and divided along its "natural" left vs right vertical division. The two resulting ... thingies have been fixed to home built wooden L-shaped sticks, which in turn have been fixed to the slider (after removing the plastic caps). The white tape used for the uh... finishing is electrical tape (sticks hard and lasts fairly long. There are other more robust tapes, but the electrical is more elastic and I can pack it tighter)
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Topic: Show us your Face, your Cockpit & your Ride! (Read 297628 times)
