There are 12 FIPs in my system, and the two USB hubs they plugged in are placed closely. As the cables coming with the FIPs are quite long, heavy and hard to bend, they are troubles everytime I want to tidy them up properly.
They have been headaches to me for a long time until I finally figured out how to deal with these cables recently. Continue reading
My Cockpit
580: My Cockpit Rev #14 – Yoke Position Mod
After the FIP Adaptation mod yesterday, I found the protruding placement of the Alpha Yoke particularly eyesoring, since it is hard to cope with the other Saitek / Logitch panels as reported in my review for the yoke.
Of course, to those Alpha Yoke owners who don’t have any Logitech panel, it is not a problem at all. But it is to me. Here’s how how I got ride of this eyesore earlier this morning. And it was pretty easy. Continue reading
579: My Cockpit Rev #13 – FIP Adaptation Mod
As stated in the Alpha Yoke review earlier, the “extended” FIP adaptation approach makes it even harder for users to access switches on the face-plate.
Here’s my correctional modification so as to place the FIP stack backward a bit behind the bracket-mount of the Alpha yoke. Continue reading
569: My Cockpit Rev #12 – FIP Gauges
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
563: My Cockpit Rev #11 – Control Cluster
After talking all these year about my cockpit rebuilding, it’s really making progress this time and it should be completed within the next two months if no unexpected issues coming up.
The equipment I finally picked are as follows: Continue reading
560: My Cockpit Rev #10 – Parking Brake Remodified
Although the using of the dental floss picks plastic box for the parking brake 
modification described in the last post does the job nicely, the plastic box itself in milky transparent color, however, looks a bit odd among my other cockpit stuffs. Moreover, as the case was hard-drilled onto the underneath side of the table, I find I am giving myself a hard time when I need to readjust its position accordingly when the yoke is moved.
After many different attempts, I finally managed to repackage the parking brake module onto a hard paper board cut from an old Chinese Moon Cake box. Continue reading
559: My Cockpit Rev #09 – Modified Parking Brake
The picture on the right is a parking brake module I bought from Desktop Aviator many 
years ago. It didn’t even come with a decent brake handle. The device was kept in the storage until I “discovered” it when I was looking for something else.
Although it is trivial, I told myself that it should add fun to my system — I finally recalled that was the idea I bought it originally.
But then I found it too big to fit into the location under my yoke. So I opened the case to check out if it could be modified.
Luckily it is possible since the housing is wasting an awfully lot of space with just one tiny circuit board and a pull-push knob inside.
After some searching, I eventually picked a dental floss picks plastic box as the new case for it. Continue reading
523: My Cockpit Rev #08 – TV Surround
I don’t want to wait another day or another week and therefore spent the whole afternoon yesterday hanging up the TVs. Luckily I am using warehouse racks, installation was a lot simpler than I thought.
Here are some photos of the cockpit before and after the installation. A quick video of my first flight with the new TV setup is at the end.
522: My Cockpit Rev #07 – Big TVs
My cockpit rebuilding has ceased for almost a year. There were many reasons and one of them was the unsuccessful of getting reasonably priced but good quality TVs to be used as side windows in my rebuilding.
Luckily, I got a bargain deal last Sunday. It is a Samsung 49-inch with 4K capability. Price for two is about $1,000 which is even cheaper than a new iPhone XS.
The two TVs were received this morning. I have scheduled to put them up in the next couple of weeks.
So glad that I am finally moving another step forward after all these months.
FS Times 