Glad and excited to be getting back into flight simming! I was mainly into Falcon4, but plan on also getting into DCS A-10C.

As stated in the other thread, my wife is letting me have the guest room to change into a man cave.


So I starting ticking off things I always wanted, and things that were a problem in my previous pursuits. Because of limited space, before I had to be able to put a cockpit area for desktop and simming use, and ended up with a situation with a keyboard tray bolted on the side of the ABC pit, and turned my monitor in that direction when I wasn't flying. Now, in our office we have a large desk that would be a perfect location for FPS and non-simming gaming. So I figure that when I want to do something other than fly, I'll drag the PC into the office and hook it up to the monitor in there (which currently houses the Mac Mini we both use).

I've used the Akers-Barnes plans before and felt comfortable with that, but wanted to add a few modifications of my own, and some inspired by posts in this forum.

• A wider keyboard tray to allow for a CH Throttle Quadrant, keyboard, and mouse. The TQ will mainly be used for the switches on the face and also for a landing gear handle and anything else that strikes me.
  
• A rudder pedal mount.
  
• A forward tilt for the joystick.
  
• Cougar MFDs with screens behind them to make active MFDs. This Holy Grail wasn't feasible when I was last in flying.

Some construction photos:





Don't have any current photos of it, but I've built an add-on to the dash for mounting the Cougar MFDs, USB monitors, and an X-Keys 58 for an ICP. Photos of that will come. I used to have an Aimsworth F-16 ICP/MFDs, but that was lost long ago.

Some equipment for the project:

HOTAS Warthog, X-Keys 58, X-Keys 20, Cougar MFDs, and two Lilliput UM-80 USB monitors.

Old HOTAS equipment. I'll be using the CH Pro Pedals and will use the Cougar throttle when flying Falcon4. Ghost will recognize the Franken-Potato(TM).

And some new equipment, for simming and other uses: TrackIR 5, G13 game board, G700 wireless mouse, Func Surface1030, and Logitech k360 wireless keyboard. I chose that keyboard because it's compact and wireless, and I would be using the G13 in FPS games anyway. I also picked up two Satechi 12-port inline USB hubs that will be mounted in the cockpit.



As for the computer all this will be hooked up to, that's on order and will be here in a few weeks. Since I've been out of PC gaming for quite a while, I decided to take the easy (but expensive) route of ordering a Mach V from Falcon Northwest. It'll have a Core i7 3930K @3.2GHz, a 1200W PSU, liquid cooling (which I really wanted but didn't want to mess with), 32GB 1866MHz DDR3 RAM, a BD burner, a 256GB SSD (I'll add additional storage drives later), and an EVGA GeForce GTX680 2GB card. I went with just one card for now due to cost, but the motherboard will support two cards in SLI, so I can always add one later.




Well that was a lot for one post, but as you can tell, I'm excited and happy to be diving back down in this rabbit hole!

Pfftt! After those specs, I don't think "cost" was involved... Nice specs!

As for your ABC, did you have it CNC'ed? What material are you using? Looking forward to build pics!

Well I had to draw the line somewhere. I also have to afford two trips to Atlanta this year to see the Braves (including the last two home games, and Chipper is retiring at the end of the season!)

I drew out the ABC myself on 1/2 blonde wood plywood from Lowe's and cut it myself with a circular and a jigsaw.

Very nice woodworking skills! I'm about to do some cuts for my build as well, bought a new set of blades for the jigsaw.

Can you tell me how you painted it? I'm thinking of painting my build when I'm done but I've never done it before, would appreciate some tips.

.... ah, what would we be without our garages and man-caves, eh?

Thanks for the compliments. I had flat black for the console and vessel gray for the seat and sides. After cutting I used a Dewalt palm sander and then painted it first with primer then with the paint. I bought three paint trays and rollers and used them, and a small brush for the tight spots.

I may put some aircraft markings on it when I'm done.

Forgot to mention: the monitor will be a 40" Sony LCD TV.

I guess I should stop congratulating you on the specs and start congratulating you on the wife.

BTW, you know the latest flavor of Falcon 4 is Falcon 4 BMS, right? Have you tried it yet? Fully-working 3D cockpit, 'nuff said!

Yes, I'm aware, but have not tried it as I don't have a Windows PC right now. In the house we have all Macs. I figured that since the PC is on order I'd wait rather than try BootCamp.

So usually how this works out is you will get the room just the way you want it and then you find out Jr. is on the way - there goes your "Man Cave."

Don't say that!

Actually that would mean new house.