RedBird flight simulator cockpit design

[mampersat]

tl;dr; I want to run FlightGear on the RedBird hardware we have. Anyone done this? Searched this forum with no luck.

We've got one of these: http://simulators.redbirdflight.com/products/td2 . I'm pretty sure the software it's running is based on a version of Microsoft Flight simulator. It's designed for instrument flight training, to the point that you can log time using it towards your instrument rating. However - it's not much "fun" to fly. You can't look left/right so flying a proper pattern is difficult.

I want to install FlightGear on the machine and then design a cockpit such that the controls all line up on the screen correctly.

Here's a picture of what our simulator looks like: http://www.mooreair.com/CIMG1765.JPG you can kind of see the radio stuff on the right has real buttons etc. Other than that it's just a screen behind the stuff.

The computer that it runs is a pretty basic PC, with all the controls (yoke, pedals, etc.) all plugged in via USB. My plan is to put another hard drive in the machine, install Linux and FlightGear on it and then learn enough cockpit design to modify more "fun" planes so their controls line up.

I don't want to remove the redbird software - as we have pilots learning here who might want to log official time on it in the future.

[wlbragg]

The specs of your system says you're operating on an i5 processor with Windows Home Premium. This being a typical platform, FlightGear should be able to be installed as you would install it on any PC running under Windows. You do need to know something of how to install software on your machine and how to run different startup configurations or at the very least how to get around in the menu system and add options to it. Typically, custom systems such as yours AutoStart you right into the program that it's designed around, where you might have to make that an option.

[curt]

A couple years ago I flew down to Austin TX and met with Jerry and Todd and some of the other guys to discuss the possibility of them using FlightGear as the core software for their simulators. I came back and did a short write up of what I thought it would take to fully replace their existing software and visual systems and 3d models. In the end they already had things working with MSFS and it would have been too much effort and too big of a disruption to make a full simulator software jump, so we never pursued it.

For what it's worth, I was super impressed with the company and the people and it's zero surprise that they are killing it in the FTD market and no one else is close.

For your hardware it looks like you have the acrylic overlay with the knobs and buttons. That has some kind of USB/HID interface. I don't know further details because we never followed through with the project, but that would be the first place to attack .... get their knobs and buttons and yoke and pedals working with FlightGear. (Or at least understand how to talk to the hardware first, then figure out how to glue it to FlightGear.)

The next statement is pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if you managed to connect up with the right person in the redbird infrastructure, they might be willing to provide some basic information? Or maybe it would be striaghtforward enough to puzzle through yourself? I can tell you that they had some linux fans fairly high ranking in the company for whatever that's worth.

Best regards,

Curt.

[mampersat]

The RedBird software ways you can't install anything else on the machine - so I'm trying to avoid that. Hence the plan to put in a 2nd hard drive w/Linux on it. Set the BIOS to boot the new hard drive and let GRUB do the dual boot magic. If we ever need to, we can just remove the 2nd hard drive and things should be back to factory standard.