Probably like a lot of other people, I thought that motion for a flight simulator cockpit is a rich boys realm and never achievable on a low budget. Well.. wrong.. with a bit of Kiwi (a friendly slang name for New Zealanders) ingenuity and a lot of simple talent, a close imitation can be done for very little outlay. To get motion started as a simple idea, then grew into an obsession. The budget was $0 but like lots of things that grow into an obsession, money was needed to make progress.

THE TOTAL COST TO GET THE DATA FROM THE FLIGHTSIM COMPUTER AND MAKE THE COCKPIT ROLL AND PITCH IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE HORIZON (WHEN REQUIRED) IS ABOUT $400 N.Z. (ABOUT $200 U.S.) However, being a radio ham operator, and working in the electrical field, helped.

This unit I built was a "made from junk" unit and was only built to get information (angles, speed etc) for the simulator I was actually going to build, latter on, using good gear. It performs so well, I thought that I would pass this info on, as some of the flightsim community have made absolutely amazing cockpits and to plonk them on top of this simple motion platform would really blow their mind. I have been through hell on this (Cheap and simple) as I did'nt want to throw money at it.. also in the formular was simplicity.. used ready available things, as ultimately, the unit was to be scrapped. My aim in the future is to build a proper platform (that's why I need the figures) using a dual cockpit (islander, Cessna 310 ??) with a hercules C-130 as a flight model and fly around NZ.



I havent done much with the actual cockpit itself as the unit is a test unit.. BUT it goes so well, I dont want to wreck / sell / dismantle it (the whole unit) and start on the new one untill I've totally finished playing with it.. I have a friend that's got his own plane (piper) and he was very impressed with the motion and when I changed it over to combatsim II I couldn't get the bugger out of it.. I could only sit outside and watch the motion and have more beers !!!!