Saitek Pro Flight Panels Now Work With DCS Word Aircraft

ArturDCS, as he is known on the Eagle Dynamics (ED) forum has written a program--Flightpanels--to allow the following Saitek Pro Flight Panels to interface with DCS World aircraft:

Switch Panel
Radio Panel
Multi Panel
Back-lit Information Panel (B.I.P.)

Flightpanels will operate in two modes: keyboard emulation and/or DCS-BIOS. In keyboard emulation mode, the Switch Panel and Multi Panel buttons can be programmed to work with any DCS module and with other programs as well. The Radio Panel and B.I.P. will not operate in keyboard emulation mode. In DCS-BIOS mode, all panels mentioned above can be used, but they are limited to the A-10C and UH-1H Huey. As other modules (aircraft) are added to DCS-BIOS, they will be added to Flightpanels as well. When in DCS-BIOS mode, switches and buttons can be configured with keystrokes or DCS-BIOS functions, but the user also has access to other information provided by DCS-BIOS such as radio frequency setting and feedback, altitude and heading feedback and display and so on.

Click HERE for the post regarding Flightpanels, including download links, on the ED forum.

Thanks,
Skeeter

Update

Flightpanels has been updated to support the Saitek Throttle/Prop/Mixture (TPM) Panel and the MiG-21bis module.

Saitek Panels Supported
Switch Panel
Radio Panel
Multi Panel
Throttle/Prop/Mixture (TPM) Panel
Backlit Information Panel (BIP)

DCS Modules Support (via DCS-BIOS)
A-10C
UH-1H
MiG-21bis

In follow-up, here are some video demos of Flightpanels in action:

Flightpanels01

Flightpanels02

Skeeter

That's pretty awesome.
One of the reasons I haven't picked up a couple of these panels is because only they are only for FSX.

Same.

Still pretty disappointing that the community is doing Saiteks job for them.

Yup, surely the initial outlay in making the software would be more than made up by the spike in sales from all those people not buying because the panels only work with one sim.

To be fair to Saitek, they probably did consider it. I imagine it went something like this:

Manager: I heard about a new high-fidelity flight sim called DCS: World, can you make that work with our Pro Flight Panels?
Programmer: Let's see... looks like it would be possible through this Export.lua mechanism. That seems to allow read and write access to cockpit controls and could talk to our software over a network connection.
Manager: How much time would you need to implement it?
Programmer: Well, we would need to implement it separately for each aircraft module, because there is no standard interface. There is also no documentation available. We would have to do a lot of trial and error. Could take days, could take months. Even if we get it running, because we'd be using undocumented interfaces, we couldn't guarantee that the next DCS update won't break it, so it might require constant maintenance afterwards.
Manager: We can't afford to spend that much on it. Forget I ever mentioned it.

As noted in the updated original post, Flightpanels now supports the TPM panel and the MiG-21bis module.

I believe someone is working on the Ka-50 module for DCS-BIOS, and one of our team is working on the P-51D for DCS-BIOS. Once these are done, they will be incorporated into Flightpanels as well. As you might be aware, DCS-BIOS is also a community/volunteer effort. If anyone has programming skills and is interested in taking on one of the ever-growing list of DCS modules, please do contact the DCS-BIOS team and coordinate efforts with them. (This is a shameless attempt to get more modules added! I tried and pretty quickly found the limits of my abilities in this area.)

Click HERE for the DCS-BIOS project page.

In any case, thanks for all of the comments above.

Skeeter

After reading over the above posts again, I thought I would mention a few things. Although the Saitek panels had been originally developed for FSX, another private group of folks wrote software to allow them to work in X-Plane. Those plug-ins even support the FIPs. ArturDCS has been looking at putting FIPs in Flightpanels, but it's a pretty intensive effort and might not get done. There are a few other efforts out their that apply FIPs to DCS, but I can't say how well they work.

Also, since ArturDCS has written Flightpanels to be used as a keyboard emulator in addition to making use of DCS-BIOS functions, panels with switches and/or buttons can most likely be used with almost any program. Those panels would be the Switch Panel, Multi Panel and TPM Panel.

Click HERE to go to XSaitekpanels for X-Plane.

Thanks,
Skeeter

DCSFlightpanels (formerly just Flightpanels) for Saitek Pro Flight Panels has been updated. It now supports the following DCS modules:

A-10C
UH-1H
MiG-21bis
Ka-50
Mi-8MTV2

In addition to DCSFP, users will have to download the latest version of DCS-BIOS to accommodate the added modules. Please refer to the top level post in this thread for a link to the downloads.

Thanks,
Skeeter

P.S. -- Just a reminder that DCSFlightpanels can work as a keyboard emulator. DCS-BIOS is not required in that mode. However, DCS-BIOS is required for the Radio Panel, some LEDs and the Backlit Information Panel (BIP) to work.

DCSFlightpanels for Saitek Pro Flight Panels has been updated. It now has Radio Panel, Multi Panel display and DCS-BIOS support the following DCS modules:

A-10C
UH-1H
MiG-21bis
Ka-50
Mi-8MTV2
P-51D
Bf 109 K-4
Fw 190 D-9

In addition to DCSFP, users will have to download the latest version of DCS-BIOS to accommodate the added modules. Please refer to the top level post in this thread for a link to the downloads.

Thanks,
Skeeter