Saying hey from australia

[Superhornet_maker]

Hello everyone

First of all im new, and im from Brisbane Australia.
Ive been looking at these forums for quite some time now, just wishing i could make a cockpit of my own.

What im thinking of doing is making half of a super hornet cockpit, to use with the vrs superhornet in fsx.

When i say half i mean; making the side panels etc with the main panels still on the computer, this will be good as i can hopefully attach it to my desk non permently as i do fly airliners occasionally.

So i need your help:

• What do i do first, make cad drawing? but in what program?
  where can i get dimensions and good cockpit images of the Hornet
  Will a i7 930 oc 3.5ish with gtx 295 1gb graphx run this simplified cockpit setup well?

And if you guys have any idea or suggestions i would be very much grateful for your assistance.

Thank you from australia

Dylan
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[Kennair]

Hi Dylan and welcome from the sunny west coast.  The superhornet is a nice bird, seen it displayed many times at places like Avalon and here in Perth during Red Bull.

As for your questions, you can make decent panel drawings in programs such as MSPublisher, Word or any photo editor.  In fact I use Photofiltre as its simple and free but you might be handy with Coral Draw or Photoshop etc.  Of course if you're proficient with cad go for it.  For drawings I'd firstly scan Airliners.net and also other fighter forums.  I've seen a number of F18 pits during my trawls over the years.  The i7 specs you outline should run FSX very well but it will depend how you set it up and configure specifically for FS.  Even the fastest of today's PC's will have issues unless the setup is correct.

Would love to see some fighter progress pix when you're under way.

Ken.

[Superhornet_maker]

Thanks Ken

It should be quite a neat project if it works out the way i imagine it. I think it will be a great learning curve with all the programming.
At the moment im hoping i can do this little setup with a price range from $1500-$2000, but i doubt i will be able to that

Some of the projects on this forum are magnificent, The effort and time some defovote is some what incredible.

Cheers,
Dylan

[DarrylH]

Hi Dylan and welcome from yet another Sandroper,

If you are looking for F18 panels, I can highly recommend Mike Williams over at Viperpit. He does some F18 stuff now and is really top notch. I ditched several real panels and used Mike's for my F16.

The big question with your computer (apart from, as Ken pointed out, set up) is how are you going to organise visuals..projector, screen, multiples?

If you want panels down the side, that won't take up much computing power to process...but MFD's and multi front view screens do tend to chew a hunk.

I'm running an I7 920 O/C to 4.0 with a GTX260, TH2Go and three squre 19" monitors with no problems and super frame rates,


Cost projection sounds half reasonable for just side panels and not including a computer and monitors. Cost can blow out very quickly though...my Spitfire had an initial budget of $2000    .


Hope this helps,


Darryl

[Superhornet_maker]

Hi Darryl
I will only have one screen for a while, then i will invesy in another gtx295 and run 3 screens.
I wont be making the MFDs etc, at the moment thats my plane. Im thinking of just having all the hud and Avionics on the computer screen, as i run track IR too.

I'll take a look at viperpit, just depends what prices its got. I was thinking of just getting A G940 control system and place it inside the left console and make a dummy throttle that looks like the hornets real one and make it push the G940s throttle? Just thouhgt it might save a bit of money
I was thinking of doing the Left are right consoles out of wood, then cover the top in acrylic pieces or metal.

Then have Flight deck solution fro some of the twist knobs, maybe paint it in the approprite areas in glow in the dark paint, if backlighting is not available.

Anyway im off to airliners.net

Cheers,
Dylan