Content related to learning and working with various flight simulators.
Over the 2019 Holidays, I treated myself to a flight sim setup. I was looking to take a break from the daily multi-tasking of hundred things at work, home, kids and hobbies, and learn a new skill, with a methodical focus.
Learning anything new is a journey. Here's the paths I've taken, that hopefully can help others as it was, as most things, a mixed scattering of information across the internet and various retailers.
Immerse myself into a semi-realistic environment. While some have created fully immersive experiences, with actual airframes, I was focused on a smaller space, work/play balance.
Diversity of aircraft: While building out an actual plane or helicopter is quite intriguing, I wanted to have a variety of choices from small Cessnas, helicopters to gliders then jets.
I tried my sons gaming computer, but found it was not as capable as I was hoping. So, after a bunch of research on CPUs, mother boards, cases, and most importantly video cards, I decided it was easier to just throw money at the problem than attempt to dwindle into option. Open the credit-card flood gates.
The result: For someone that hasn't bought a computer in 10 years, as I just use my work laptop, I decided to build, vs. buy. Thankfully I've got some great computer friends to help with the purchase choices and configurations. I've never had a computer that starts up as quick, is as snappy and fun to use. Thus, this content has been fun to assemble as well.
My current setup consists of the following:
Note: While the links all point to Amazon, some items were purchased from newegg.com and a local Best Buy.
- Mother Board: Asus ROG Strix Z390-E Gaming Motherboard LGA1151
- CPU: Intel i9-9900KF
- CPU Fan: Corsair H115i RGB Platinum AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
- GPU: ASUS RTX-2080 Ti
- Storage: Samsung 970 EVO SSD 500GB - M.2 NVMe
- RAM Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB
- USB Hub/Switch
This was really handy to enable/disable the various joysticks, and cleanup the cable mess. With a standup desk, it's also handy to not have to worry about all the cables reaching. - Monitor: Viotek SUW49C 49-Inch Super Ultrawide 32:9 Curved Monitor
- Yoke: Honeycomb Alpha Flight Yoke and Switch Panel I
- Joystick: Thrustmaster Hotas Warthog Joystick & Throttle Control
- Pedals: Thrustmaster TPR Pedals
- X-Plane
- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 - combing soon, I hope
A list of things I need to research and update here.
- Which runway to use, and how to determine the wind angle?
- What is the startup and flight routine for each plane? Jumping in a plane that's already running isn't as much fun.
- Configure all the buttons on each joystick, yoke and foot pedal controls? This turned out to be much more tedious than I had expected. See X-Plane Joystick Configurations.
- Get the most sim performance out of my hardware?