We recently moved hosts, so there might be some wierdness in the site until I tune it out.

Also, apologies for the lack of posts.  Real life and competing interests have relegated PBM to the bottomless in-tray of my projects.  I still have a passion for it, but there are other things I'm working on right now.  If you want it back, then mail me and let me know!

The Man with the Plan

The man... the legend!

The Oz Flight Sim Expo is the brainchild of Ross Farquharson, a 737 simulator instructor at the Brisbane-based FlyAJet.  After being involved in similar events in Sydney and Melbourne, he saw the need to jazz it up a little, and give the "banana benders" (Australian slang for residents of Queensland) a chance at hosting the event.  Planning started in 2006 for the 2007 show.

2007 - Where it all Started

Nothing this large and complex happens without significant effort on the part of the organisers, and Rossco was run off his feet in the leadup to the 2007 event.  Various issues with the venues had the location change a couple of times, but it settled into Jupiter's Casino on the Gold Coast.

It was a huge space, with dozens of exhibitors from community sim groups (VAAF, 62nd Fighting Falcons, 169th Panthers, Noble Air and others) to big commercial names like Simkits, Orbx and Iris.

The Viper's Nest setting up for Expo 2007

In the end it was a hugely successful weekend, with well over a thousand satisfied sim enthusiasts through the door.  The commercial vendors also reported huge success, with expo sales and followup business running well into seven figures.  The concept was proven and the stage was set for Expo 2009. (Some more reading on the 2007 event on Thommo's blog - Ed)

Expo 2007 - a huge success

2009 - A New Location and Other Big Changes

Planning started for the 2009 show almost immediately after 2007.  Again a number of locations were mooted, including a co-location with GENCON in Brisbane.  In the end, the Queensland University of Technology Creative Precinct was chosen due to its excellent facilities, central Brisbane location, and fair pricing.

As one of the organisers of the community "Viper's Nest" display, I had the opportunity to attend the early recce in early September where we planned out the space, the elevated platforms, the audiovisuals and the program.  I'm sure Rossco will echo my huge admiration of the QUT staff, for whom nothing was too much trouble.

Paul Colmer - Musical Genius

In an inspired move, Rossco engaged the hugely talented Paul Colmer from Music4Film as the musical director of the Expo.  Paul has studied at both the London College of Music and the University of Wales, and went as far as to compose various scores specifically for the Expo.  The venue rocked to the beats of Paul's original industro-funk throughout the weekend, and Paul did an absolutely sterling job of managing the audiovisual interface to the venue from his Star Trek-like console - not a mean feat considering he had six projection screens to manage and sound inputs from sources as varied as roving wireless mics, laptops, iPods, computer headsets and professional mixers, and was playing his original compositions live!  After all that, we only peaked his desk once (sorry bout that Paul - Ed)

Major sponsors were on board, with FlyAJet and Logitech taking pride of place on the bill.  Logitech donated the major prize for the lucky draw, the G940 HOTAS and pedals!

Mike G, MC Extraordinaire

Last but not least, the Expo booked the irrepressible Mike Goldman, of Big Brother and Gorilla Radio fame, to be the MC for the weekend.  Nobody knew what to expect with Mike in the house!

Day 0 - Friday Bump In

After months of stressful preparation, Friday dawned bright and clear - something of a relief to those of us carting our cockpits from home.  Rossco bounded out of bed early to do a radio interview with the local Nova station to big-up the Expo, and the exhibitors started converging on The Block to bump in.

I know many of the readers won't ever have done anything like this, but if you ever get the chance, it's a unique experience.  The venue had a real buzz - commercial exhibitors moving their kit in, people setting up cockpits, music and video testing, people catching up with others that they previously only knew from forums and IRC.  For any PitBuilder, the opportunity to show off your hard work to firstly a room full of people just as obsessive as you, and later to a gobsmacked public, is a real reward for all the hard work and late nights hunched over a soldering iron.

Before the storm. (courtesy of Airborn Computers)

I got the chance to meet with many of the exhibitors, including the crew from Airborn Computers, The FlightSim Store and the guys from PC Aviator that I met in 2007.  Mike Speekman, formerly of Melbourne Flight Simulators and now of CKAS Mechatronics, was also there and we caught up on 2007 where I purchased the Simkits USB kit that to this day sits built but not yet integrated with the cockpit.  He listened politely to my relatively tame rant about SDK support from Simkits   (Sorry Mike! - Ed)

All the exhibitors were keyed up for a big weekend, and had some great kit on display.  Very tempting for a weak-willed hardware junkie like the author!  From the Matrox TripleHead2Go to various HOTASes to the ButtKicker (more on that later ) to custom-built rigs, motion platforms and high-performance components, it was all there, a PitBuilder's wet dream.

starting to take shape... (courtesy of Airborn Computers)

The 62nd Fighting Falcons lads got straight into it, practicing their dogfight and mud moving sorties as soon as they had power.  These guys really have a very slick show, with Michael Barnes on the mic talking the crowd through what's happening, and even the warmup was great to watch.  The huge projection screens made for an awesome spectacle, and more than one observer stood glued to the screens making Top Gun references, fighting air to air engagements with their hands and muttering things like "Extend!" and "Splash!" as commentary on the action.

... and some more gear (courtesy of Airborn Computers)

In between the setting up, many of us got to play with the gear that was on display.  Rossco had a borrowed ABC fitted with the new Logitech G940 which got a workout, as did my own G25/Need For Speed:Shift setup.

Paul Colmer and the tech wizards from QUT were busy wiring the place for sound and there were cables everywhere.  The QUT staff, seemingly armed with little more than hammers and huge rolls of gaffer tape, made the infrastructure melt into the background and all of a sudden we were standing in the middle of a fully prepared venue.  The lighting grid was set, the audiovisual feeds were tested and the partitions were up.  Sound check, lock up, home for a good sleep before the big day.

Day 1 - Saturday

Men in... nomex

Most of the exhibitors turned up early on saturday morning to fine tune the stands.  The Viper's Nest went through full dress rehearsals, both successfully, and those of us who were so inclined jumped into our flight suits.  Rossco was resplendent in his black suit, with me in my desert tan (a little tighter round the tum than I remember) and Hoff of the VAAF plus the RAAFVirtual lads in their sage nomex.  We hoped that the airconditioning, which had been comfortable on Friday, would hold up to the crowds and the sweaty action that was to come.

The venue was set up with commercial exhibitors around the outside edge, with The FlightSim Store, Airborn, CKAS Mechatronics, FlyAJet, Holdsworth Airline Collectibles, PC Aviator and Music4Film forming the business contingent.  Community and nonprofit exhibits were the 62nd Fighting Falcons showing off Falcon 4: Allied Force, the VAAF showing off DCS: Black Shark, Rossco and the USNVA (via intertube link to the USA) giving the VR Simulations SuperBug a workout on his G940 rig, a very cool exhibit of old school flight sims and consoles (including a Commodore 64 and Amiga) and RAAFVirtual throwing their PC9's and F-111's around.  Also, let's not forget the Royal Flying Doctor Service, whose tin I have been feeling guilty about not dropping some money in ever since.  Must donate online after I'm done writing this.

Mike Goldman turned up and, after picking his jaw up off the floor, started getting to know the exhibitors.  He was genuinely flabbergasted at the technology on display and got right to work learning what was what.  I'm sure he came in with some preconceptions about us (and he couldn't resist a couple of jokes about living in our mums' basements later) and most of us had some preconceptions about him from his TV work as well.  I think by the end of the weekend, we'd all learned different!

All that was left to do at this stage was to open the doors and see how many people were outside...

launch!

Well, they poured in.  One minute I was checking switches and audiovisual settings in an empty venue, the next I was surrounded by hundreds of people milling about and poking into every exhibit.  Young, old, male and (the occasional) female, all were excited, full of questions and itching to grab the latest in flight sim gear.

Ed's jumble of wires and bits

Mike gave a rousing welcome and the scheduled events kicked off.  The Viper's Nest had hoped to get in a bit of a mini-LAN event, just kicking back and flying, but that was soon recognised as being off the cards!  We spent all day talking and talking to the punters about everything from how we built our pits to what sims we were using, right down to advice on multimonitor configs for DCS:Black Shark (hint: here!).  The kids loved it, climbing over everything and pulling on their dad's arm to buy them some shiny new kit.  I was roped into purchasing advice and did my best to fairly represent all the vendors; I must have pointed a couple of dozen people at The FlightSim Store for copies of Black Shark, and similar numbers for HOTASes, TrackIRs, pedals, you name it.

Time flew.  Before I knew it, it was time for our first demo, and the first live test of the audiovisuals.  We had two pits demoing Black Shark, along with a laptop (by my right hand) as the external views to the projectors and the player for our intro movie.

VAAF mission intro video - courtesy of the amazing Nelion

We had a full script for the entire mission, which I had recorded on Friday night to my iPod.  Unfortunately, my late night editing had let me down on one of the clips, as I repeated a whole paragraph that I had intended to edit out!  This caused me no end of amusement and embarassment during the demo, though I'm not sure if anyone else noticed.

Apart from the sound levels being a bit sketchy off my iPod, the demo and mission went well.  We ingressed, prosecuted the target, nobody lawn darted due to vortex ring, and we handed back to Rossco as we RTB'd.

After thankfully pulling off an unnecessarily showy quickstop, I clambered, sweaty and stinking, out of the pit to be greeted with the sight of the entire audience clustered around the back of the VAAF display.  What a rush!  I hadn't even noticed they were there, what with flying, controlling the external views on the laptop, leaning right to speak into the mic, fiddling with audio levels and cueing the audio scripts on the iPod.  Longing for a coffee and a nice sit down, I instead ploughed into the wall of questions, and three hours later finally got a sandwich when Rossco's mum forced me to eat

Mike and FlyAJet. And lasers.

Mike was doing a great job on the wireless mic, wandering around and interviewing all of the exhibitors.  He did I noticed spend more than his fair share of time at the FlyAJet stand, though whether than was because they were the major sponsor, or because they had two lovely ladies staffing it I'll leave up to you to decide!  The TrackIR absolutely blew his mind, and he got several of us to demo it on the projectors so that the crowd - some equally amazed, some smiling knowingly - could see the "awesome head tracking technology".  I spotted quite a few people carrying them though, so I'm sure the commercial vendors were appreciative.

vrsimulations.com SuperHornet

Later in the day, Rossco linked up with the USNVA boys for some virtual carrier operations in the amazing VRSims SuperHornet.  The internet hookup worked perfectly, and they demonstrated both mud moving and air intercept roles for the benefit of the growing crowds.

World first!

I was stoked to catch up with Scott Hendry, who was my co-conspirator on the sim HSI project over at MyCockpit.  He brought the HSI with him and it is nothing short of a work of art.  This is an instrument widely regarded as too complex for a home hobbyist to build, with four coaxial rotating elements plus a number of other mechanical devices.  You can read all about it on the MyCockpits thread here, and I hope to do a feature with Scott in the near future so you can see some more on the amazing work he's doing to realise our initial designs.

The remainder of the day was much of the same.  Flying, talking, lifting kids into and out of the cockpits and generally being absorbed in the flight simming world.  We finished the day with exhibitors' drinks in the cafe, and it was home for an exhausted sleep.

Day 2 - Sunday

Having half starved myself to death on Saturday with a combination of no breakfast and conversation-induced abstinence until late afternoon, I decided that two McMuffins were a sensible precaution on Sunday morning.  Lucky I did, for although the crowds were somewhat diminished from Saturday, the interest was not!  The Bathurst 1000 at Mount Panorama probably caused quite a few sim junkies to make the difficult decision to stay at home in front of the plasma instead, but those who came along got to see some great demos.

Loophole in the Vipers Nest

The DCS demo on Sunday morning was the best of the three VAAF sessions.  I was using Paul's shiny new radio earbud, and was able to talk live, in a back and forth conversation with Mike Goldman, over the PA to the crowd during the whole session.  External views had been moved to Hoff's cockpit so the punters could see what he was seeing, so we were both able to focus on some interesting flying, engagements and voiceover.  I decided to give the crowd a little look at some tracer fire at the end, as up till then we'd been exemplary standoff assassins!  The T55 in the village lit me up proper like, and I got right down into the weeds as Hoff finished him off.  A good example of teamwork flushing the enemy out, and a bit of a show for the watching crowd.

Note carefully the middle pedal.

With the venue starting to empty out in the afternoon, we had more of a chance to let selected folks try out the cockpits.  Mike carefully clambered in (his slightly longer legs conflicting somewhat with my ABRIS, much to my consternation!) and had a surprisingly talented crack at poleing around the sky.  Within five minutes he'd figured out the primary flight controls and was searching for the rocket button, and climbed out to hand over to a couple of his mates, who did just as well.  One in fact even claimed that he'd be straight off to buy DCS, a HOTAS and pedals and a new gaming rig!

The racing setup was easily the most attractive display to the under-15's, and a contingent of them decided to set up a rotation to see who could ping pong the fastest around London City in Need for Speed: Shift.  Apparently Generation Z have never heard of a brake pedal!

VERY lucky door prize

The day started to wind up around 3pm, and many of the exhibitors (myself included) decided that an early start at packing up was a good idea.  We continued to chat to all and sundry as we dismantled the exhibits, and Mike and Rossco finished the weekend off with the lucky prize draw, which went to a Mr Brian Hamilton.  Congrats Brian, enjoy your new G940!

Wrapup and 2011 Plans

So that was the Oz Flight Sim Expo 2009.  Some great flying, some great mates, a lot of great chats to a load of great people.  I walked away with a relatively conservative haul - an almost criminal deal on a demo Buttkicker Gamer (which is slated for my upcoming RaceBase racing pit) and a new AudioFX Pro 5+1 force feedback surround sound headset.

All the commercial exhibitors I spoke to reported good sales, and regarded the weekend as well worthwhile.

Huge thanks must go out to the major sponsors FlyAJet and Logitech, and to QUT for their outstanding support over the weekend.  It was really a tremendous venue, with very impressive audiovisuals and facilities.  Paul Colmer also did an absolutely splendid job as musical director.  And of course, the biggest round of applause must go to Rossco, who organised the whole deal from scratch and wouldn't rest until every fine detail was sorted.

So, what's planned for next time in 2011?  Early conversations with Ross indicate that he's going to give Sydney a try, and expand the event to cover a number of areas of "extreme gaming" including an equal focus on racing.  PitBuilderMag.com will be there throughout the leadup, and after such an awesome experience this time, I can't wait for Sydney!

- Ed

PS: I'm still working on the video from the event and hope to compile the authoritative video coverage.  If you have any footage from the event that you'd be happy to have included in the video, please let me know.  Thanks!

Oz Flight Sim Expo 2009 Blogroll

• Photos at Airborn Computers
• Thommo's Blog

First of hopefully many blog posts here from the VAAF's own Thommo, and video here:

PBM: G’day Sheldon, and thanks for agreeing to speak with PitBuilderMag.  To start off with, could you introduce yourself and your background in flight simming?  I understand you’re a corporate jet pilot by day, and sim entrepreneur by night?

SC Simulations: Hello all! I'm Sheldon Cannon, Owner of SC Simulations, LLC out of Little Rock, Arkansas, up in the United States.  My passion for aviation shows in many ways. I fly a Cessna Citation Excel in the day and when off then I redirect my attention to pit building.  I have several thousand hours as Pilot-In-Command of airliners and corporate jets, but I love to build pits and fly online with friends. I'm very blessed to be in a position where my time allows me to start a business where I can help share my passion for aviation.

Sheldon and his company car. Jealous yet?

PBM: You just made every single one of our readers insanely jealous!  But let's talk about the cockpits before I start dribbling over the Citation.  The F-16 kit certainly looks very nicely done.  Did you have much of a background in cockpit building or manufacturing when you started SC Simulations?

SC Simulations: Well, I have been building pits since I was very young. I believe my first pit was a card board shoe box cut out and taped together, and "flown" around making airplane noises. Fast forward to now and I have built a several cockpits. Mainly, my interest remains in military simulation which triggered the design of the F-16 Kit.

PBM: It’s a big step up from a personal interest in cockpit building to starting a manufacturing operation.  How did you get the idea, and how did you get started?

Under construction - ACESII in the foreground

SC Simulations: Well you are right, it was a big step. First step was to get the wife on board (we could write a whole article on this topic! - Ed). I then purchased a professional computer controlled router (which cost several tens of thousands of dollars) as I realized that I just could not get the detail I desired by hand. I got the machinery and the workshop all set up, sat there, looked at it, and asked myself how I was going to pay this thing off (with a bit of trepidation, I will admit!). I sort of went "Holy crap!" and then my wife told me that I couldn't sell a car to pay it off. A couple people saw my plans for the ACES II kit, which really was the only kit planned in the beginning. People liked what they saw and asked for more. Things definitely took off from there.

PBM: How is the product range developing?

SC Simulations: The current product range is developing towards a total simulator concept to smoothly integrate every step of building the customer's simulator, from the structure, to the panels, to the switches and even the labels and external decals. There will be more, but we can't really talk about it yet.

PBM: I’m guessing that with the impending release of DCS:A10C, there will be a lot of interest in the A-10C soon.  How is development of the A-10C kit coming along, what can we expect from it, and when is it scheduled for availability?

F-16 side consoles

SC Simulations: Development is coming along great on our A-10C. You can expect something very much along the lines of our F-16 cockpit; something that can be shoved in a corner of the room, and make you believe that you are really flying the 'Hog. The A-10C pit structure has more right angles and fewer odd angles than the F-16 so development will be much easier and faster. As you know, we like to deploy well thought out and tested products, that are ready for an end user with a minimum of fuss. We will announce a release date once we have completed our thorough design and testing process.

PBM: "It'll be ready when it's ready" huh   Can't say I blame you, it's a sound approach to emphasise quality!  Can you describe your design and manufacturing process?  What sort of equipment do you use?

F-16 front panel, HUD and glareshield

SC Simulations: We begin with a concept. We develop what features we want, and what our customers want. We do the actual design drawings via CAD software, and begin the prototype/testing cycle. Once we complete this process we release the product for production. Our entire manufacturing process, from conceptualization, to design, to testing, to manufacturing and production are all entirely in-house. We are slowly adding equipment to the workshop as we can, to expand the number and types of products we offer.

PBM: You mention your customers' desires - how does the feedback loop work with current and prospective customers?  Is it centered on the SC Simulations forum?

SC Simulations: The current feedback loop is primarily focused on our forums, and market research on other gaming and simulations forums. We also receive many emails every day from customers and potential customers so our development does not end with the product launch. We are constantly tweaking and updating our designs to suit customer needs or desires. We realize that a CNC kit is not a finished kit, and so we provide the best feedback and support we can to ensure customer’s success in the construction of their ‘pit.

PBM: What other aircraft platforms do you have in mind for future development?  I see that the F/A-18, Ka-50 and F-15 are mentioned on your forum.  Are they officially slated for the pipeline?  What about a generic WWI pit for Rise of Flight?

This could be you!

SC Simulations: We are planning the F/A-18, Ka-50 and the A-10C at this point, but we are here for the flight sim community, and enjoy supporting the community, so if someone wants a specific pit, say a A/V-8B Harrier or a P-51 Mustang and get 15-20 people together who will commit to one, we will be more than happy to design it and deliver it to the community.

PBM: What about other sim genres?  I can see there might be some interest in a Formula 1 or Battlemech cockpit, especially with some recent and upcoming sim releases in those genres.

SC Simulations: We have some Battlemech and generic pits in the conceptual phase. These may or may not turn into products. We haven't decided on whether to push forward with them yet or not. If the demand is there from the community, we WILL deliver.

PBM: Great news.  Onto your other main product: The F-16 HUD.  It looks amazing.  Do you plan to further branch out into panels or other components that the average pitbuilder isn’t equipped to build themselves?

SC Simulations: Thank you. We consider the HUD the “holy grail” of home simulator building. It is an item that everyone has wanted but could never bring to fruition without a real HUD unit and spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on a real HUD. This is a minor compromise, but the pictures we have shown and the product speak for themselves.  It’s the most simple and most affordable way to have a functional HUD in a home simulator. And it’s cheaper than you might expect.

Like we said before, we want to aid the builder in everything from start to "finish" (as every pit builder will tell you, the simulator is never "finished").  We will begin producing panels very soon at the absolutely highest quality and most competitive price on the market. Period.

PBM: Ooh, panels.  Those can certainly be frustrating to build without a CNC, as I can attest!

Onto the nuts and bolts of purchasing one of your kits.  What sort of price can folks expect, and do you deliver all over the planet? What can we expect to pay for shipping?

SC Simulations: The basic F-16 Cockpit kit is $650 USD without an ACES II seat. With a seat kit it is $899 USD. We deliver to anybody, anywhere in the world. Of course, with the exception of those countries banned by US Trade and Customs Laws. Shipping varies greatly by country, from $150 USD up.

PBM: What will people see when they open the box?  Can you describe the construction process, and the tools required?

SC Simulations: When you open the box, you will see a box full of MDF and ABS parts that are wrapped and shipped like a tank. We have found that some countries’ carriers tend to be rougher on boxes than others. Each of our kits has assembly instructions for it, which are simple to understand and illustrated to help make it extremely easy to build. These can be found on our website (http://www.scsimulations.com) under the Support section on the main navigation bar. We tested the illustrations by having several people who had not built one of our kits, and they successfully constructed the kits based just on the pictures. The basics of the construction process are to line the parts up, pre-drill them, countersink the holes, screw or bolt them together, sand them down, and paint them. It’s simple really.

All the kits can be constructed with simple hand tools such as a power drill/screwdriver, various drill bits and driver bits, clamps, various off the shelf glues, sand paper, and paint.

PBM: I can imagine people will be a little nervous about taking a drill to their brand new kit.  Have you considered CNC pre-drilling the parts to eliminate a potential source of heartbreak?

SC Simulations: We pre-drill all significant drill points with a 1/8” drill bit during the manufacturing, however to pre-drill all holes with the proper sizes, it adds over six hours to the machine time. This creates a significant bottleneck in the production process. As of yet, we have not had a single problem from customers damaging a kit. Just have to take your time, and be careful.

PBM: Oh great, having pilot holes for the significant drill points is 90% of the battle.  What sort of support is offered, and what is the returns policy?

SC Simulations: Support is offered primarily by email, but if we are near the computer, we are more than willing to chat on MSN Messenger or on the telephone.  We don’t maintain any set hours, but we have developed a reputation for quick responses to emails and answering questions quickly. The return policy is clearly spelled out on our website, but if you have any issues send us an email and we will work towards a resolution, even if you are not sure whether we cover it.

PBM: Fair enough.  Finally Sheldon, what are your plans for SC Simulations?  Can your customers be confident that you’ll be around for years to come?

The completed kit

SC Simulations: SC Simulations primary goal is to bring our products to a more casual gamer environment. We want our products to reach the level of ease of use where a potential customer thinks of our cockpit setup as the next logical step past their Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS setup.

We have invested tens of thousands of dollars in starting this company. This business started from a hobby where we saw how hard it was for newcomers to get into the hobby. We want to make this easy. We have reset the bar much higher for pitbuilding with our high quality, ease of use and assembly, and lowest cost in the market.

PBM: That’s great information, thanks Sheldon.  Anything else you’d like to say to the readers before we wrap up?

SC Simulations: I just want to thank our customers for being the source of inspiration and always pushing us to take that next step. We plan to continue to market the simplest and most affordable solution for realistic military home aviation simulations. Our goal is to be the most complete "one stop shop" for military aviation simulations, and are always looking for the next innovation - the simplest way for the customer to make their dream of flying in the skies and locking up and engaging bandits just that much closer. SC Simulations, LLC. "Bringing Aviation Home."

PBM: Thanks again Sheldon, and we at PitBuilderMag wish you all the best with SC Simulations.

Check out the SC Simulations product range and forum.

thewayiplay.com

PBM: Gday Matthijs, and thanks for being a part of this interview.  To start off with, could you introduce yourself, and give us an overview of how TWIP came about and the original purpose of the site?

Tysmyster: Hello, my name is Matthijs Borgdorff, 27 years of age and residing in The Netherlands, Europe. I have a bachelors degree in social and political philosophy from the University of Amsterdam.

Videogames have always interested me, as they do many people, but in my case my interest was frustrated by parents who were not too keen on computers, let alone videogames! This has led to such a traumatization on my part that I have been compensating for my lack of access to videogames ever since I achieved independence.

G25: gateway drug

I am kidding about the trauma of course but not about the compensation I’m afraid. When I was a lot younger I would sometimes see the arcade racing machines with Sega Rally etc. and would think to myself: I have got to have something like that at home! That dream stuck to me and many years later, when Logitech released its G25 wheel with clutch pedal and H-shifter,  I knew the time had finally come to make it all happen.

So, I had a reasonable pc, a g25, and I bought a projector so I had a nice big screen. Very quickly you decide that clamping your wheel to the coffee table while sitting on the couch and having your pedals slide away all the time, isn’t gonna cut it. So, I made a simple drawing of some sort of dedicated racing table and got some wood to build it. It was very simple but equally effective. While thinking about how to improve my experience even further it occurred to me that many other people must be doing this same thing, and probably a lot better than I am! Then, after seeing a topic on the Test Drive Unlimited Forum in which a poster invited people to show pictures of how they played Test Drive, I realized that it would be a great idea to have a dedicated website, just for that purpose.

Armed with a lot of enthusiasm but lacking any knowledge of what it took to build or maintain a website, I started learning what I had to and fairly shortly after, The Way I Play was born!

thewayiplay.com

The name of the site says it all really. It’s a place to show people the way you play and learn and take inspiration from each other.

PBM: TWIP is now pretty dominated by sim racing, though there’s a lively hardware and cockpits board with some amazing cockpit threads, including the odd flight and mech pit.  Is the focus on racing something you’ve cultivated, or has it just grown that way?

Tysmyster: The focus on sim racing has more or less grown this way unintentionally. I happen to be more of a racer than a flyer personally, though I do fly, so naturally I would encounter more racers than flyers. Originally, the idea was to have people show each other the way they play their games, this can mean a race or flight pit, but it can also just be a nice game/living room with a big TV and dolby surround sound and a game console. We even have people building their own arcade cabinets and showing pictures of that. So, as long as it’s unusual and gaming related, we want to see it.

Even though I have tried and still am trying to keep TWIP diverse and not exlusively focused on cockpits or even racepits, when it turned out to become more of a cockpit/racepit site I have been flexible and accommodating towards that development. If it becomes more diverse that will be great and I encourage everyone to post stuff that is something different from the cockpits that we mostly see, however if it just stays a great (racing) cockpit builders forum and if it keeps growing the way it is, than I’ll be a very happy guy too.

PBM: Is there anything that’s surprised you about the community that’s developed around TWIP?

Tysmyster: One surprising fact to me was how members and simmers were of relatively old age compared to typical gaming communities. Of course this makes some sense since in order to build a cockpit in most cases you need a certain amount of resources and independence to be able to do so. However the fact that not only people around thirty, but also many around forty, fifty and sometimes far beyond turned out to make up the majority of the simmers, was an encouragement to me. This really is a worthwhile hobby which has the potential to entertain sane mature people throughout their whole lives. That is also something I like about TWIP. People are encouraged by each other and see that they are not alone in enjoying their hobby and that you’re not ‘weird’ if you keep a virtual racecar or aeroplane in your house.

PBM: You're right, it is definitely eye-opening when you first realise that you're not as far out on the fringe as you thought!  As with any pursuit that people get passionate about, I'm sure there are hot topics on your boards.  Are there any that are guaranteed to get a lively "debate" going?

Console vs PC: who will win? Place your bets now!

Tysmyster: What’s always guaranteed to raise a debate is the old ‘console vs pc’ topic. Especially when it concerns simulation. Most simmers will agree that right now the simulation software, not to mention all the hardware, that is available for pc’s, is far superior in offering realism than that which is available for consoles. However, with new games like Forza 3 and Gran Turismo 5, and now the upcoming Need for Speed Shift, which also promises realism, it looks like the debate might get some new life blown into it. It is commonly assumed that simulators are too ‘hard’ for most gamers to enjoy and so they almost never make it to consoles which generally only invest in guaranteed successes such as another sequel to Need for Speed. Lately however realism has also begun to become a selling point for some console titles such as Gran Turismo and Forza and now even Need for Speed is picking up on it. I think this is partly due to the enormous success that especially simracing has seen in the past few years on PC. Titles like rfactor, GTR2, Race 07/Evolution and of course iracing have gained an enormous following, not in the last place because of the incredible modding communities out there.

As far as flightsims are concerned, I think it will be a long time before we see flight simulator on a console. Hehe, maybe on an xbox.

Fanatec.com cockpit. I think it moved a little.

Aside from this, we are always excited when we see new types of hardware that can be used for simrigs, or people modding existing hardware into ingenious new things. The hunt for realism is what keeps us busy, so when something new arrives and promises to be a ‘next step’ in some way, we are usually interested. The G25 versus the Fanatec wheels is an interesting one and now of course the release of the G27, the G25’s successor.

It’s clear from this answer too, that we are mostly focused on racing right now, but like I said, we are eager to expand!

PBM: Which qualities of the TWIP site do you feel are unique?

Overview thread. Good idea!

Tysmyster: I’m glad you asked that because I do feel TWIP has some unique qualities which justify its existence in my eyes. First of all TWIP is completely dedicated to actually showing things. Pictures, videos and build-stories. It is meant as a place where people can permanently put their gaming rigs online where it remains easily accessable for them and everyone else. Because the site is dedicated to this we can organize things in such a way that everything remains uncluttered and therefore fun and inviting to see and browse through. We’ve had plenty of comments on the site of people who had spent hours just browsing and reading build stories, watching pictures, getting new ideas and really enjoying themselves while doing it. In our TWIP section, each member is allowed only one topic in which he can show as much as he wants to. In this way you can be sure that in that section, each topic you click will contain a new unique gamerig. Also we have thumbnails for topics and an overview topic which makes it even easier to browse the rigs and get more information on the ones that interest you.

Secondly, we have been building a database of topics on all the relevant hardware that is available for the things we do. Any member can make these topics or comment in them so a lot of useful and easily accessable information and personal experience is starting to gather there. This feature is not so unique except maybe for the category that it targets, namely gaming hardware however, I do feel it’s a very valuable addition to the site.

Finally we have something nifty that was an idea of one of our moderators. In every post below the poster’s name you will see a so called ‘rig button’, assuming this person has a rig on display on the site. When you click on this rig button you will be taken straight to the thread about this person’s rig. This way you can always easily find out how the person plays that you’re talking to in the forums. You can also find this rig button in member’s profiles by the way.

I am always thinking about and open to suggestions about ways to make the site better, more fun to visit, more easy to use or more attractive visually. So I do expect many more improvements and new features will be added to TWIP over time.

Of course we must not forget our community itself, the members. Without them TWIP would be nothing. I am really very pleased with how friendly and helpful our members are and what a nice atmosphere we have created together in our little piece of cyberspace. Thank you everyone!

PBM: Are there any builder threads on TWIP that you think would be particularly interesting to PitBuilderMag readers?  Anything that’s really blown you away?

Tysmyster: Definitely! As the site grew, more and more impressive stuff started appearing. There’s setups that impress due to the exquisite hardware that is used, but there are also those who impress equally due to the enormous amount of creativity or craftsmanship they exhibit. As far as specific examples go, one of our members, GPI Steve, has a great topic to read through. It is by now at least 10 pages long and covers the complete evolution of his gaming rig with lots of pictures and explanation. He was a person that literally started from scratch after joining TWIP but got the bug so bad that he just kept evolving and evolving his setup and ended up with something quite impressive. He’s still at it with adding stuff to his newly built flight pit (even though he started with a racepit) so we keep following him as he continues on his journey. It’s really cool to see. There are many others which are quite impressive but since it is very easy to find them yourself on TWIP using the thumbnails and overview topic, I’ll just leave it to the readers themselves to pick out the beauties.

PBM: Could you describe your own setup?

Tysmyster: I am a member of a simracing community called Simjunkies and that is also a term that I think is very accurate to describe me. Aside from being a simjunkie, I am also a fan of gaming in general. Not that I like all or even most videogames, in fact I hate most videogames, but I really appreciate a good one and will not hesitate to get a specific game console just for that one game that I really want to play. My interest doesn’t really limit itself to a specific genre either aside from my obvious focus on simracing. I have a PS3, a Wii, a PS2, a NES, a PSP, two very able gaming pc’s, two racing cockpits side by side, one more elaborate than the other.  I have two G25 wheels, one for each cockpit. Both G25’s are customized and both cockpits have a TrackIR. One cockpit uses a Full HD 1080p projector that projects onto a wall which is treated with special projection paint. (Drool - Ed) Well you did ask!

I didn’t get all this stuff at once of course. Saved it up and upgraded and expanded over time. Details about all of my stuff can of course be seen in my TWIP topic. There’s pictures, videos and information about the hardware I use.

PBM: The sim community seemed to go a long time with only token interest from hardware and software vendors.  Now it seems we’re seeing a lot more high-fidelity sims on the market, with good support for cockpit integration, and a load of new controller devices.  What do you think the future holds for high-fidelity simming?

Tysmyster: Well the way simming is seemingly gaining popularity can only mean good things for what’s to come in the future. Right now we see pc sims offering extremely sophisticated physics but still lacking a bit in the graphics department. In turn we see console sims/games offering more and more impressive graphics but lacking in the physics department. Of course to a degree it is either or since both physics and graphics require computing power. If popularity of simming keeps growing however, the larger markets could make it possible to combine the two so we will end up with great looking graphics and highly sophisticated realistic physics. Personally I am quite interested in the new Forza 3 that is coming out for Xbox360 since they claim that it will do just that. Of course Gran Turismo 5 also comes to mind but in my opinion they will have to come up with better physics than GTPrologue has in order to accomplish this goal. Based on my experience with GTPrologue, which I own, I can say that it doesn’t even come close to even pc sims of several years ago.

As computing power keeps increasing I think we will see more and more real looking simulations. There is still plenty of extra detail and fidelity to add in simulations. This goes for racing but definitely goes for flying. Just look at the enormous system requirements of for instance FSX which, even at the highest settings, doesn’t look all that impressive let alone real. The way I see it we’re not there yet by a long shot. I can’t wait to see simming in ten or twenty five years from now, and I’m planning on being there to experience it.

Aside from computing power, new ways of displaying things and controlling them and experiencing them are constantly being developed. I am for instance very excited about the dome shaped projection screens that are out there now.

PBM: Anything on the horizon that you’re particularly looking forward to on the sim scene?

JDome - a full hemisphere of gaming win

Tysmyster: The J-dome is something that I am looking forward to with anticipation. It is a dome like projection screen but it uses simple materials and is therefore highly affordable. To literally be immersed in the game is something I’m very interested in.

On a personal note, I’m looking forward to moving and getting a house with some proper room for my hobby. Then I will be able to start my new cockpit which is gonna be completely crazy! Keep an eye on TWIP to find out what it’s gonna be. I did put some plans up in our ‘I wish’ section.

PBM: Good luck with the new place!  I went through the same thing earlier this year, and it's really nice having a dedicated bit of space for the cockpit(s) and a workshop, or "man cave" as my wife calls it

Tysmyster: (laughs) Thank you. Yes, the term 'mancave' is a popular one on TWIP as well.

PBM: What would be your advice for someone getting into sim racing, or any simming or cockpit building for that matter?

Tysmyster: Well my advice of course would be: visit TWIP! No, but seriously, we do have a ‘getting started section’ which is a good place to start and talks about what kind of hardware and software you need to get underway. Also you can just view all the cockpits and get plenty of ideas for your own project, not to mention everyone is eager to see your progress and help out with advice and ideas.

More generally, my advice would be not to be too overwhelmed and simply look at what you need personally, draw up a little plan and go for it! Don’t aim for perfection on the first try because you will always be developing and adding stuff later anyway in most cases.

Also don’t be overwhelmed by how hard or complicated simming is and how much better others are at it. When you come from videogames it is a transition to go to simming. For instance Gran Turismo, which I played so much on the PS1 and PS2 before I got into simracing, you play to win a championship and earn credits or unlock cars most of the time. You might do a warmup lap but then you jump straight to race, you do five races on five different tracks in a row in a total of about an hour and a half maybe. In simracing you can easily spend an hour and a half just doing laps on a track on your own, or with others, just practicing. Setting up your car, really getting to know the flow of a track, find that perfect line through each corner and having fun doing it because of all the nuance. It requires a different attitude.

PBM: Thanks for your time!  Any final words you want to say to PitBuilderMag readers?

Tysmyster: Well I think it’s great that there are so many simmers out there and that our numbers are growing as well. TWIP is still a young community so I think we’ve only scratched the surface of what is out there. I hope to see many of you post your setups on our site so we will have even more fun stuff to look at! Everyone is of course invited to come browse the collection we already have. Right now there are already well over 150 cockpits on display so there’s bound to be some stuff there that interests you.

Thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to talk about TWIP in this interview. I am looking forward to this and future publications of PitBuilder Magazine.

Make sure to check out TheWayIPlay.com and say hi to Tysmyster on their forums!

Some early ABCs, around the start of the century

PBM: G’day Michael, and thanks for agreeing to answer our questions.  To begin, could you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about the origins of the ABC?

Allen Pawley, photographed at the Avalon Airshow in his precursor to the ABC pit.

LOOPHOLE:  The original inspiration for the ABC was a sim-cockpit that Peter Akers and I saw at the Avalon International Airshow, back in 1999 (I think).  That was the first year that we organised a flight-sim display at the airshow.  It was a collaboration between four clubs, from Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney and Melbourne.  We were all flying Su-27 Flanker at the time, and several groups brought sim-cockpits with them.  The Newcastle guys had some impressive units, but they were huge – they needed a trailer to bring them.  One of the Sydney guys – Allen Pawley – had a much neater unit that could be disassembled for transport.  It was Allen’s design that was the inspiration for the ABC.

PBM: So from the initial inspiration to your design - can you describe the principles, key features and construction process of the ABC?  What do you think are the best parts of the design?

LOOPHOLE: There were four criteria that we had for the ABC design:

• Approximate the layout of a jet-fighter cockpit
• Easy to make
• Quick and easy to assemble and disassemble
• Fit in a two-seater MG

The latter criteria was dictated by the fact that Peter had just bought himself a classic MG soft-top!

Can a cockpit fit in this? You bet it can!

The original Allen Pawley cockpit was held together with screws and bolts.  Starting with its basic layout as an inspiration, we made cardboard models, and worked out a way to build the whole thing jigsaw-fashion, out of nothing but flat ply and one length of dowel.  This made it easy to make – just cut the shapes out of a ply sheet, and it’s done – and easy to assemble and disassemble – the pieces just slot together.  However, it was still going to be too big to fit in Peter’s MG.  Also, it was too narrow to fit a set of Thrustmaster rudder pedals.  That was when we came up with the idea of separating the seat and the console unit.  That brought a bunch of benefits – the console could be made wider to fit the pedals; the individual pieces were smaller, so the disassembled unit would fit in Peter’s MG, and the distance to the console could be adjusted to suit the individual, just by sliding the two halves.

Akers... and Barnes. Hence the name.

Before we built the first one, we made a full-sized cardboard replica, and sat in it using phone books as the seat, to get the heights and sizes right.  We then built ABC #1 in Peter’s garage, and I am still using it to this day!

PBM: Two blokes in a garage - the story of many great inventions!  Anything that you’d change, in hindsight?

Flexibility: Ed's ABC, modified to take a homebuilt ACESII ejection seat.

LOOPHOLE: A great thing about the ABC design is how flexible it is.  It is really easy to vary the design to suit your own needs.  It has been quite amazing to see the variations and ideas that people around the world have come up with.  Some have fitted car seats.  Others have added centre consoles and centre-mounted joysticks.  Some prefer a higher position, and have raised the height of the whole unit.  It is just a matter of tweaking the shapes before cutting them out.

We did add a few things to the original design.  Particularly, the original design didn’t have lugs on the side-strakes, so they tended to tip if you leant on the outer edges.  We also added slots and pieces to provide a keyboard shelf, and a shelf to clamp a steering wheel if you wanted to use the cockpit for driving games.

I also found the seat a bit hard, and replaced the seat base with a stack of foam blocks that the back-piece just slots into.  That variation hasn’t made it into the plans on our website.

PBM: The flexibility is certainly something that attracted me to the design for my own 2nd generation cockpit, given that I had an ACESII ejection seat to fit in it.  I must say that the modular design made it very easy to modify.

Onto the plans: they are free to download, but you do request that builders request a free “license” of sorts via email to construct a copy.  How many requests have you had, and what would you estimate is the total number of ABCs out in the world?

LOOPHOLE: We did the “license” thing because we wanted to retain the copyright to produce the design commercially, but still be able to allow people to use the design to build their own.  I did look at commercial production, and several entrepreneurs contacted me about doing likewise, but in the end the production and shipping costs make the price unreasonable, so it was not a viable proposition.  It would take something like an Ikea to bring the manufacturing and distribution costs down to a reasonable level.  Regardless, I would always want to keep the plans available for individuals to use for free.

It is hard to say how many ABCs have been built around the world.  Just based on the people who have emailed us, I estimate it to be in the hundreds.

ABCs at the Oz Flight Sim Expo 2007

PBM: Any tips for readers that are about to build their own ABC?  What tools are required?

LOOPHOLE: We built the original ABCs using a ruler, a circular saw, a jig saw, a rasp and some sandpaper, so it doesn’t require much.  (Pro Tip: the heavier a jigsaw is, the better the result - Ed) I did get a couple laser-cut (there is a CNC file included with the plans), and they were sweet – absolutely perfect joins.

Hints for builders?

• The plans are based on a specific wood thickness.  If you use a different thickness, you might need to adjust the positions and width of the slots.
• Cut the shapes with some margin.  When you paint the pieces, the slots get tighter.  When assembled, the units are self-supporting, so you can make the slots quite loose and sloppy.  That makes it much easier to assemble and disassemble, but doesn’t affect stability when assembled.  The key pieces are the top and front panel of the console; the slots there are deliberately slightly off-position, as the pressure acts to lock the rest in place.
• If you make customisations, build a scale cardboard model first, to make sure you adjusted all the interlocking pieces correctly. (Balsa or CAD also work well - Ed)
• If you don’t like woodwork, look for a friendly neighbourhood engineering firm with a laser cutter, and convince them to do a little one-off job for you.
  

  And it fits together just like Lego.

PBM: Good advice Michael!  With so many ABCs out there, and many of them having been extensively altered, have you seen any particularly impressive modifications?

LOOPHOLE: I recall looking at photos of the Lowland Tiger Meet in Europe, and seeing many cockpits there that seem to be ABCs or based on the ABC.  The ones that really impressed me had been kitted out with complete instrumentation setups.  It must have had some impact on the portability, but the result looked like a full-on professional simulator!

PBM: Heh, I know from experience that portability is inversely proportional to bells and whistles

Although the ABC was originally conceived as a flight simulation platform, it’s very applicable to racing and mech pits as well.  Have you considered modifications to the design to tailor it to other applications, or to improve on the original?

LOOPHOLE: It doesn’t seem to have needed any changes for any of the applications we have seen.  The only shortcoming we have not been able to find a good solution for is a comfortable place for the mouse, so the pit is not so good if you like to indulge in occasional first-person shooter or RTS in between simulations.

The Brisbane-based 62nd Fighting Falcons

PBM: True enough, I've certainly had my share of "ABC Shoulder" from extended sessions of ArmAII in the pit.

Your sim squadron, the 62^nd Fighting Falcons, have shown off their ABCs at a number of airshows and expos.  What sort of response have you had to the design, and what are the most common questions you get?

LOOPHOLE: We have always received great interest and positive comments about the cockpits, when we do displays.  The most common question we get is “where can I buy one?”.  I’d still like to be able to give people an answer to that!

PBM: Cheers Michael.  The sim world is certainly a better place for having the ABC design at its disposal, so thanks on behalf of the whole community for such a tremendous asset.  Anything you’d like to say to the readers?

LOOPHOLE: I’m just really pleased that people have found the ABC design to be so useful!

The 62nd hard at work in their ABCs.

The plans for the Akers-Barnes Cockpit can be downloaded here.  Please remember to request a builder license!

• Builder Interview: Michael "Loophole" Barnes on the Akers-Barnes Cockpit
• Community Spotlight: Tysmyster from thewayIplay.com
• Vendor Profile: Sheldon Cannon from SCSimulations

Welcome to PitBuilderMag.com!  Tell your friends, and send us your feedback!

We want to launch with a number of great articles, so that folks aren't greeted with an empty site when they see it for the first time.  So we're currently writing those, interviewing and getting that content ready.

Please be patient, and we'll announce the launch on all the major forums when the time is right!  More frequent updates will be posted on Twitter, so keep an eye there too.

Update: Official Launch Date

We will officially launch at the Oz Flight Sim Expo on 10th October.  The initial batch of articles will go live immediately after the official launch.

PitBuilderMag has been an idea germinating in my mind for almost a year now. As a beginning cockpit builder I found a massive well of information on the net: forums, worklogs, the odd content aggregator, even huge instruction manuals like Mike's Flight Deck.  I was drowning in data.  Somehow I navigated it, somehow I stumbled across the things I needed and my cockpit took shape.  Today, I'm very happy with it and am starting to think about my next cockpits as well as the upcoming modifications to my original.

Though I have always enjoyed the reams of information out there, I've also looked for content that wasn't just factual but was also entertaining and opinionated.  I found myself wondering about the people behind the howtos and the hardware and, from the number I have met over the years, I know they are invariably fascinating.  It's the unique stories that make this hobby more than just a loose collection of techniques.

So, we come full circle.  PitBuilderMag is for you: the simulation cockpit builder.  We'll try to bring you interesting content that is both entertaining and inspiring; focused on the hobby and the community as much as on the skills and techniques.

And that is where you come in too.  Your feedback will shape this mag - we'll endeavour to incorporate all the best suggestions from our readers.  Sensitive issues like advertising and sponsorship will be run by you where possible, and your reading experience will always be forefront in our minds.  Finally, we welcome your contributions!  If you want to write for PitBuilderMag, either as a one-off burning issue that you just must get off your chest or on a more regular basis, we want to hear from you!  Email me and we'll talk.

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