In my Post 574, I mentioned that the two knobs on the face-plate of the FIP, if broken, are simply unrepairable, but Oz Flyer (David) in the Comment suggested two possible solutions to repair them. Here’s the first one I just tried since I don’t have a 3D printer as required in his second suggestion.
Stuffs needed are just some super glue and WD40, and I put everything on a piece of paper to avoid either the glue or the WD40 spilling over onto the table.
Continue reading
José in Paris started flightsimming with FS98 back in 1989 because flight training courses were too much for him, especially he had just had his second daughter at that time. Sadly in these days, he has to partially disconnect his simulator in order to save a little space while needing to stay and work at home.
Followings are the photos of his cockpit. Stay Safe, José.
Builder: José
Location: Paris, France
ICAO: LFPG, Roissy-Charles de Gaule
Since there is no flying season during recent pandemic shut down, Beaverpilot in Canada has more time continuing his DHC-2 cockpit project that he has been working for more than 10 years now. Here are some photos he took recently. It definitely looks better and better.
Builder: Beaverpilot
Location: Northeastern Ontario, Canada
ICAO: CYCN, CNN5 waterdrome
I am having some new ideas about the background of my gauges. But firstly tell me which types of background you like more by clicking the survey button below.
I flew the P3Dv5 continuously for nearly three hours this afternoon. Besides the 
landclass issues that I mentioned in my Post 568 earlier, I didn’t encounter any other issues reported in P3D forum during the session (perhaps some but not noticeable to me) luckily.
Of course the ATC service was kept silence all the time except during take-off and landing. This is a known bug so far causing freezes or CTDs. Other than that, I really feel the new simulator runs smoother.
Be the way, I have clean installed the latest Nvidia drivers again and Continue reading
A few days ago, another flight instrument panel (FIP) of mine suddenly stopped working. Didn’t have any symptom similar to the other faulty one I reported in my Post 561, this one just ceased to work — no display, no response — during a flight session.
After trying many possible solutions to revive it but of no avil, I had no choice but to unplug it from the hub and put it aside waiting for another teardown.
Nothing lasts forever in reality, I know. This one has also served me for more than 10 years.
I was planning to tear it down this morning. Continue reading
Some of my FIP Gauges developed for FSX/P3D come with the backlight feature. By disabling the “Pilot 
controls aircraft lights” in Realism setting, the backlight will turn on automatically when night falls. I wasn’t aware of that before since I always have this option enabled.
Considering applying lights automatically really adds fun, probably I should spend some time updating more of my other gauges with backlights accordingly.
My flightsim computer is built on the ASUS X99 Deluxe II motherboard with Intel i7 6850K CPU. Not the top highend nor the latest model but it works nicely.
However, it has an annoying problem that it seldom boots up succcessfully from cold and dark — sorry, no prime function boost here. Most of the time the system goes to Windows only from the second or sometimes the third or fourth startup attempt.
My computer and peripherals all have the latest firmware and drivers. The issue persists whether I overclock the PC or not.
I searched the Internet and found the issue isn’t uncommon especially among systems built on the X99 chipset running Windows 10, regardless of brand.
I tried many suggestions, such as unplugging all USB devices when booting the computer, disabling/enabling certain features in BIOS, etc.
None of them helps until recently I found the following tweak: Continue reading
While doing fine-tuning and waiting for fixes for the new P3Dv5, I continue to have my cockpit rebuilding going on as planned. Now is time for the gauge components that reaches a total of 12 FIPs stacking up on top of the HoneyComb Alpha Yoke (click image to see larger picture). They should be good enough for most of my light aircraft flightsimming requirements.
The 12 FIPs are hooked up to two electrical-powered USB hubs, which are then connected to my Surface Pro that is responsible for the operation and switching of the FIP gauges independently from the main computer. Continue reading
FS Times 