Hello all,
My name is Horst. I started my technology career in electronics engineering, then went over to computer sciences. My passion is aviation, more specifically, flight simulation. I am semi-retired and decided to follow this passion for aviation by combining my basic knowledge of electronics, computer programming and aviation to build flight simulator cockpits from real airplanes.
I have been doing so for a few years now and I am having a lot of fun (and challenges) with it. Interfacing real airplane parts (such as throttles levers, gauges and switches) requires me to use all sorts of electronic components and sensors. I sometimes find myself in "unknown territory" when it comes to building these interfaces.
I would love to share (help) and also post questions about some of the components I want to use. The world of electronics has advanced so much since the days I studied it and I sometimes lack the necessary experience to overcome a problem.
I have built several cockpits by now, two of which are being used by local flight schools to teach young pilots. It gives me great satisfaction to see these new pilots use these "machines" I have built. In a way I feel I am contributing to "flight safety" 🙂
Thank you for having me.
Horst
@horst Welcome to the forum. I think there are a couple other 'cockpit' builders here.
First computer 1959. Retired from my own computer company 2004.
Hardware - Expert in 1401, 360, fairly knowledge in PC plus numerous MPU's & MCU's
Major Languages - Machine language, 360 Macro Assembler, Intel Assembler, PL/I and PL1, Pascal, Basic, C plus numerous job control and scripting languages.
My personal scorecard is now 1 PC hardware fix (circa 1982), 1 open source fix (at age 82), and 2 zero day bugs in a major OS.