How To Build A Cessna 172 Home Flight Simulator Setup Guide

Great stuff love it !

Love it!

You could do this or for that money get your PPL and join a flight club and actually fly lol....nice setup though.

Thanks for this expose on your setup and costs. What I would like to know is how well a home built flight sim station can translate into usable real world knowledge.

Thanks for quality video. Glad to see you using flexible Air Manager/knobster desktop solution. I am not affiliated, btw. I went down the same glare shield flight deck rabbit hole. I had monitors behind etc etc. XP, AFL 172sp, etc. 
Honestly, as a rw pilot and instructor, you will outgrow a 172 quickly, particularly in the sim. Another solution is to just use 2 touchscreens and 1 or 2 knobsters. Specific aircraft Flight deck, hardware switches, not necessary and takes away flexibility. The upper monitors depend on system capabilities. 1 upper mon 16x9, 24x9, or 32x9 with track ir works fine. My current system is corsair vengeance 4090 i9 with 3x32" lg nano ips, 2xasus 21" touchscreens and 1 knobster, no Track IR needed. I fly mfs longitude end to end on vatsim and pilotedge. I try to fly perfect trips with checklists, startups, atc comms etc. 

There is a great Airmgr longitude panel $20 by sling tony. Experimentalsimavionics dot com (not affiliated)You should try it and the longitude. Flies all sids stars rnp .3 certified approachs, nosewheel steer, speedbrakes, thrust rev, advanced coupled vnav G5000 with autothrotle, retractable gear. The Airmgr panels have pfd, mfd, 3 gtc touch controllers, lights, ice, complete pedestal, standby ai, afcs autopilot. Totally resembles the real cockpit and fits on 2 touchscreens. No mice in my cockpit!
My point is, after doing this for 20 years, the fascimile flight deck is cool but really isn't necessary, takes away flexibilty of diff aircraft, and will keep one from growing into bigger and better, higher and faster. I would bet a dollar if you fly this Longitude in MFS on vatsim you will find it very hard to go back to the great, but painfully slow, 172 trainer. No offense. Air manager/knobster and realistic panels is all you need. Totally immersive as well. Good luck

The Airmgr/knobster desktop solution is great. I was rw pilot/instructor. Hardware cockpits are 1 step better, for example real sim gear g1000, cirrus perspective, with hardware knobs, everything, but honestly, you are stuck with this g1000 setup and the cirrus. With incredible aircraft coming out frequently, for example WT G5000, why not use the flexibilty of AirManage realistic panels? When the Collins Proline or garmin g7000 comes out with new stuff, all i have to do is buy a new panel for $20-30. The AM solution is $200-300 vs inflexible, hardware home cockpits at $5000 and up. Makes sense to me, just sayin no offense. Not affiliated. Touchscreens are the future of most GA and Corporates anyways.

Where can I order the flight panel?

Thinking about moving away from Apple/Mac after 4 decades and building a PC. What are the primary specs you have on your gaming/flight sim PC? Disregard! I guess I should have watched the entire video first! Thanks!

Great video!!


KISS...keep it simple simulate....




🐦

Buy a $10,000 symulator it will be worth every penny when U sell it to upgrade. Besides your flying friends will help you pay for it with seat time. and it legal to log hours. Back in the early 70's when working on my Instrument rating my flight instructor had an OLD LINK Trainer in his basement. That was more difficult to fly than the club PA-28 140 or 235 or even the Aero Commander Darter.

I'd recommend buying a Brunner yoke. Yoko is a joko

‘Merica!! Hahaha

This is such an amazing build!! Thanks for sharing your journey

Thanks for this video. Im currently gathering the parts for my new simpit build which will be very much like yours. 2 G5s, GTN750, G500 autopilot all from Realair, the TPM plus, honeycomb Alpha and Bravo, same 48" monitor and 12" touch screen plus tablet for duet display, tablet for garmin pilot and lots more.

Good Setup. But in reality, the amount you have spent on the setup is worth for close to 100 Hrs of real-time flying 😅

great setup if I have nothing do I start with computer 1st

Id like to build a setup that will allow me to upgrade to commercial planes. Do you have suggestions?

Wow… my whole Cessna cockpit even with the i9/4080, 3 55 inch 4K tvs came in under half of that.

great video Mr. Flight Sim Guide man!

PEDALS?

Roughly the cost of 40hrs of dual instruction in a modern 172. Not bad.

For training and proficiency.....these setups save more money than they cost on top of being fun.

Fly safe.

Very nice video. Love the detail. My setup is quite crude, but I have some ideas now to improve over time.

great video, thank you. i see some are usning Air Manager or Mobiflight. and with Air Manager do you take the PC version or Android etc versions and run on tablets

diy is bes....

13K! bro how much is a used plane?

Can you do a Cessna 152

Can we fly you out to Florida ? Build this in our home

Sensacional.

Very amazing setup , you should check out the mixed reality build I am in the middle of , I’m sure the same concept would work great on a full scale panel like yours 👍

Inspiring.

How do you deal with needing to look over your shoulder in the sim? I've got a tiny thumbstick on the flight yoke that i can't seem to adjust the speed for so it's like i'm trying to turn my head with a neck brace on. the alternative was hop into my VR headset and lose the ability to see all my flight controls and be forced to hold the headset controllers which makes it incredibly difficult to have any physical flight controls

damn well done

Amazing setup and thank you for creating this video.

Great review. ’m considering a mixed reality VR system (Quest 3). I have an old set of GFX cards but a fast computer. Am considering a steamguage monitor, knobster, throttle quadrant, pedals, and force feedback yoke. Would like to have a cessna feel but not necessary straight away. Any thoughts on this setup ? Radios recommendation ? BTW were all your panels running off one PC (through USB hubs etc) or d9 you have a slave PC for the panels ?

No rudder?

The Biden voice killed me 😂

I have a question regarding your video card(s) setup You have ultimately 6 screens between your main monitor, main panel gauges and then your GPS's and G5's. How did you manage all those connections? Are you running networked PC's or one PC with 2 video cards? I only as as I have one video card with 4 available slots and would like to add more myself but not sure how or the best way to accomplish this. Appreciate your help in advance!!!

Nice video - informative and engaging, keep it up!