Nice review. Thanks.

If I were considering a purchase (i'm not) my main questions having now owned two Obuttos would be about the adjustability and flexibility of the monitor mounts- which is a real strength of the Obutto Revolution. The Volair monitor mounts look like they might be pretty static/fixed. For example, I use 3 30"s in portrait mode...I wonder if the Volair would be able to handle that? You might measure your 24"s horizontal length and see if it would fit if it were flipped. What kind of height and width adjustments do the monitor mounts offer? Are the sidemonitor mounts adjustable so they can be moved either closer to or further from the center mount? is it possible to move the whole monitor mount stand further away from the cockpit? I could see an owner of a single 42" wanting a lot more distance than someone using a 24".

Basically, it would greatly improve the review to put the monitor mounts through their paces (even if just theoretically via measurements) to see what kind of flexibility they offer. Because there are about 4 or 5 different approaches to monitor usage that serious gamers and sim players might use (3 in landscape or portrait, large single, large single 30" in landscape and 2 smaller 20" in portrait mode' etc), this info would greatly help them decide if the Volair is a viable option.

Thanks again for the review. Overall, this looks like an option worth considering for those who can't afford the more expensive Obutto Revolution (though the Ozone is in the same price range As the Volair I believe).

There doesn't appear to be any ability to move the mounts forward or back based upon the size of the monitor. It is a pretty good point, something I didn't think about to be honest. I have no idea if any of the Obuttos have this capability or not. As for portrait mode, it may be possible depending on the mounting holes. I will e-mail Bart at Volair about this. The two Dells on the outside have the capability to turn sideways and be used that way, I personally don't see me doing that though. Maybe if I got a bigger monitor for the middle (not likely anytime soon) I might be interested in trying this.

The actual mounts do adjust in and out to compensate for various size monitors, so there is some adjustment. There is the ability to raise the height of the entire setup.

Hope this helps.

Nice review Wklink. One of the things that has been mentioned about cable management on the Obuttos is that it's not all that great and slightly improved upon with the r3volution.

I see that the Volair:



doesn't seem to adress it either?

Call me anal but for me cable management is a must. It not only keeps things neat and clean but also keeps the cables out of the way and the possibility of damaging them is significantly lessened.

Not really. It is something of a problem, especially with multiple peripherals. Unfortunately it is no better with the Roccaforte I had before, or any desk for that matter. I honestly don't know of a way that it could be 'cleaned up' short of a special panel on the monitor mount, maybe something I will suggest to Bart when I write to him.

And yes, you are anal. I am a little bit too. I am going to fiddle with this a lot more to see if I can clean it up a bit. I'm not happy with it but for the moment it is functional and as I said, it looked better than it did with the Roccaforte.

I was actually thinking of finding a piece of metal to place behind under the monitor, attached to the monitor mounts to hold the power strips. I can't have them on the floor, or even close to the floor because either the Yorkies or that cat I am holding will try playing with the wirss.

I'm suprised no one has mentioned the cat. I asked my wife to take a pic of me flying in the pit. She hands me the damned cat and says 'Hold her, I need to do her ears' (she has ear mites) and then proceded to take the pics while I was holding the cat. Cute pic but very hard managing the throttle in a dogfight.

Is the center monitor stand sturdy enough for a shelf to put your PC onto? That's where I have put my PC.

Anal? Perhaps

Hey Guys,

First of all, thanks to Tom for the review and for everyone for their constructive criticism. Let me answer couple of the questions:

1. One of the main objectives for the Volair Sim was to make things simple for the user and that meant making it easy to align monitors. So we made a compromise and we do not vary the angle and distance of monitors from the flight deck. We gambled (based on user study) that most people would not care about this and would be perfectly happy with the default configuration. I guess our gamble paid off as we are yet to hear from a customer complaining about the default angle or distance being a feature they wish they had. Again, this was done to make things EASY for a user to set things properly as we noticed that some cockpits that do offer angle adjustment are a BEAR to align properly so all monitors are same height and angle. Classic case of design trade-off.

2. Size and orientation- 3 30" monitors will fit in BOTH landscape and portait mode.

3. Cable management - good point. I am also quite particular (I'm an engineer so you know how we think) and we probably should consider some suggestions in our manual for proper cable management. What we found work best was to run the monitor power and signal cables and tie to the monitor arms horizontally and then bring all monitor cables down the two center tubes and secure with zip ties. This makes things very unobtrusive. Then we put all power strips, etc. down behind the computer out of sight.

4. Pricing. Our motto always has been: affordable fight cockpits. Some people cannot just afford spending $1000 on a chassis (that is what r3volution would cost with the triple mounts, etc). Heck $500 is a lot to many folks as it is. We hope that people see that we offer a great value by having all mounts (except center stick) standard.
.

Thanks for the reply Volair_Sim,

Could you also answer my question regarding sturdiness of the monitor base and perhaps mount a shelf to the back to put the CPU onto? When I get home I'll post some pictures of what I'm talking about...

$1000.00? Although close, not quite there.

No problem. It's hard to me visualize what you are trying to accomplish so I will reply once I see the pics and give you an idea.

As far as how we came up with the $1000, well the r3volution cockpit is $800, add $110 for the triple monitor mounts (which are standard with Volair). Then you need a table to mount the avionics somehow so you need to get the $120 acrylic table from obutto and you are looking at over $1000 easy.

Okay, doing the math for the r3voloution and the features you'd have to add to it to equal the Volair I'd be looking at $1074.00

I can attest to that in trying to align 3 30"s in portrait mode on the Revolution. I got it close, but eventually gave up trying to get it perfect. Just doesn't work for me. But it's very close. And overall I am very happy with the Revolution's approach to multi-monitor placement, even there's room for improvement (though I realize I'm the minority using three huge 30"s...no reason for anyone to do so now with affordable 2560x1440 monitors that are likely quite a bit lighter). I really appreciate the fact that the Revolution monitor mount is separate from the cockpit. You could mount a huge TV to it and get the distance you need just by scooting the cockpit back.

Overall, $500 ssems like a good price point for all that the Volair offers.

Damn, that was a good idea. I actually mounted a base to the wall but this would work too.

That looks a bit tight- does the heat vent properly?

Yes. No issues with heat.

Hello,

I think you should be able to mount something similar to the Volair Sim's base behind the center monitor (use the two center vertical tubes). The tubes will definitely support the CPU and if anything you will add additional stability to the rig as you will add more mass by the monitors. I do not see any issues.

Rock solid, at least on my oZone. Thanks.