Oh no, I am getting rid of the plate. You'll notice that the measurements in my image are not large enough to hold the plate. I'm intending on having the Warthog mounted to a piece of 1/2" ply which is attached to the cross supports. I need to do more tweaking of my model in SketchUp now that I have real-world dimensions.

Here is the third revision of my Center-Stick mod for my cockpit. The pedestal of the Warthog mounts to the circular piece of wood which is mounted to the two pieces below it. That slides into two pieces that are slotted into Part "I", the front seat support which will be modified to accommodate. The whole thing slots together and is right with the feel of the original ABC.

It would most likely be possible to create something similar for the right block of the seat since the front seat support also supports the left and right "wings", and lines up almost perfectly with where I like to have my stick when I fly side-stick. Then I could do both side and center in one pit!

Another update:

I finished the design for my center stick mod for my cockpit and traced it out onto 1/2" ply, but I kept putting off cutting it. To keep myself entertained in the meantime, I bought myself a flight suit.



Hello ladies.

It's black, non-military issue, and not made of nomex. It serves to enhance my sense of immersion, and makes me feel cool after a couple of beers.

That's an A-10 pin on the lapel. Picked it up for $4 at the military surplus store where I got my suit.

I've been playing a bit of Black Prophecy again, and I've been using the Coolie Switch on the Warthog's throttle to control horizontal and vertical strafing. The switch was starting to hurt my finger so I dug out my mechanic's gloves to wear while flying. This is what happened after a few hours of flight:



I need to find somewhere to get some real, durable flight gloves. I found an online shop here, but I'm not sure if they're still in business.

But tonight, I finally got on the ball and finished the center stick mod. Here it is fully cut and assembled, minus the mounting circle for the stick:





I test fit it in my cockpit, and it fits EXACTLY as it does in my SketchUp model.


And then I made the mount for the stick itself.


It feels great so far, but I haven't had the chance to test it in-flight yet. I think I'll go do that now!

I'm glad the hole cuts worked out. I saw that ragged tear-out on your first ones and wanted to send a condolence letter to the plywood manufacturer.

So how many times have you been caught making machine gun noises?

g.

Awesome work Renic!

Thanks guys! Caught? Never. Made the noises? All the time.

Some of the cuts are pretty ugly due to me being impatient, using a dull blade, and also having a few beers in my system at the time, lol.

The height is almost perfect for me, it could stand to be just a hair taller, but as it is now, it doesn't get in the way of my legs, and they don't get in the way of it.

I've noticed a slight left and right pitch in the stand, but I haven't noticed a difference in-flight. It's pretty good so far.

My TrackIR 5 came in the mail yesterday, a whole day earlier than they said it would. I had a few hiccups when getting everything configured, as all my controls in DCS A-10C got changed around somehow. I fixed everything, but I still don't know how they got messed up in the first place.

But that TIR sure enhances the experience. Flying around before I got everything set up right again, I found a train track, and followed it low and fast up into the mountains, where I was so surprised to see an actual train rolling along it that I promptly crashed into it. And that crashed DCS, LOL.

Just now I finally had the time to sit down for an extended period of time and learn to use the weapons systems in the A-10. I'm happy to report that I finally got my first kill! Killed four trucks, a few buildings, a bridge and a SAM site. I probably should have used a maverick instead of the GBU-12 on the SAM though, as he got a hit on me before my bomb impacted. I haven't learned the countermeasures yet! But I celebrated with a PB&J, a corn dog, two cookies and some fruit punch lemonade.

Now I gotta figure some temporary solution to keep my pedals from sliding away from me in flight!

Depends on whether you have carpet or bare floors.
For carpet you could use short carpet spikes either attached to the pedals or attach the pedals to a thin piece of wood and attach the spikes to that.

For bare floors I have heard of using carpet scraps or carpet pad scraps under furniture to prevent it from sliding. Turn the carpet carpet side down so as not to damage floors that you don't want to scratch. If you go the carpet pad route and you have hardwood floors they make a pad specifically for HW floors.

Hope this helps.

Thanks, Allaire. Eventually the whole pit will be mounted on a movable surface, probably 3/4" ply with locking casters, and the floorboard area will be carpeted. Then I can just throw some velcro hook on the bottom of the pedals and problem solved.

Right now the pit is on the concrete floor of my garage. For a quick fix to make it flyable, I grabbed a scrap piece of 1/2" ply and laid it flat on the ground behind the pedals and butted my PC case up against it to keep them from sliding back. It works for now, but is obviously far from anything but a temporary solution.

As in left and right play in the unit? Possibly some wood glue to fix it?

Awesome work by the way, a very smart design.

So what's next?