Boeing 767 Flight Simulator

I am able to fly my Level-D Boeing 767-300 flight simulator from Cold and Dark start-up till landing and shut down, without ever having to use mouse or keyboard. This was my ultimate goal when I started building this in 2003.

Boeing 767 flightsimulator

My desk top based cockpit is not a complete replica of a 767 cockpit because of lacking space. However, every push-button, toggle switch, rotary switch, rotary encoder, led and display is working. There are no dummies!

go to lekseecon page

 

The cockpit hardware is interfaced digitally with the Level-D 767 via the Level-D's SDK and my lekseecon program.

Programming is done in Opencockpits SIOC. The SIOC code is available at the download page.

In total I am using 312 inputs for push buttons, switches, rotary switches, rotary encoders; 169 outputs for leds and decimal point control and 85 digits in displays.

Next to that I am using three flight controls; Yoke, Throttle and Pedals. They provide 10 Joystick axis; Elevator, Pitch, Tiller, SpeedBrakes, Left Engine Throttle, Right Engine Throttle, Flaps, Left Toe Brake, Right Toe brake and Rudder and a number of buttons and hat switches for visuals control.

Not visible in this picture are three special functions that have "enriched my cockpit experience": Cold and Dark Cockpit support, Lights test (to check for hardware malfunctions) and dimming of displays.

 

Intermezzo (Dreaming):

My ultimate goal is to have a full scale 767 simulator like Ian Cameron from Tasmania did. His simulator is based on the same technology (Level-D 767 300 + Opencockpits IOcards + SIOC + lekseecon). Look what you can achieve with it.... Awesome!

Boaing 767 simulator

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PC Hardware

I use two PCs connected via an Ethernet network. My main PC, running FS9 and FSX is housed in a Antec P180 case with a 500 Watt Enermax Liberty power supply.

It was assembled by myself and contains:

The Operating System is Windows XP Home edition SP3 with DirectX9.0c. The video driver is the Nvidia Geforce, version 197.45

The second PC is used for the connection to the VATSIM network, voice communications, flight planning and weather provisioning.

It is a Hushtechnologies B3, containing:

The Operating System is Microsoft Windows XP SP3 with DirectX9.0c

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Software

This section summarizes the software I am using at each PC. In total I am using eleven programs and four dynamic link libraries (!). You can image that you have to be rather accurate in order to let all these programs cooperate.

Flightsim PC  (Adam) Communications PC (Eden)
MS Flight Simulator 2004 (FS9) or FSX SquawkBox3.1
767-300 Configuration manager ASE
lekseecon9/X (+LVLDSDK.dll) WideClient
SIOC FSBuild
FSUIPC.dll Fuel Loader
Wideserver.dll VATSpy
Simhardware.dll nDac

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Flightsim PC

On the main PC (named Adam) runs Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004 (FS9) with the Level-D 767-300ER add-on. The resolution is 1680*1050*32 and almost all sliders are maxed, no artificial ATC.

Here is a screenshot of the 2D panel of the Level-D 767-300 waiting at EHAM gate E2 for push and start clearance for a flight to EDDM (rwy 24, ARNE1S departure).

Level-D main 2D screen

Below a spot view screen shot of me at gate E2. The real time weather is generated by ActiveSky V6.

KLM aircraft parked at gate E2

Note: I am not alone in the virtual world this morning. Look at the company aircraft, another Boeing767, the KLM117. Here is how I see that KLM117 through my right window in my cockpit.

cockpit view from right window

The beautiful airport scenery is Cloud9 Amsterdam for FS2004.

Also very important to note is Pete Dowson's FSUIPC program. FSUIPC offers a software interface for third parties to functions and variables of FS9 (and FSX) and is very often used in the flightsim world.

Pete's program is implemented via a dynamic link library that goes into the modules directory of FS9.  I can also use these services at another PC with the help of another program of Pete Dowson called WideFS.

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Communications PC

On this PC (named Eden) runs a WideFs client, called WideClient.exe. It provides communication with FS9 on the main PC, via FSUIPC.

A very import program is SquawkBox3 (SB3). You need this great program for multi-player flightsimming on the VATSIM network. I run SB3 at this PC and not at the FS9 PC, in order to have maximum frames per second in the simulation and not to disturb my view.

For the same reason I also run another important program here, the real time weather program ActiveSky Version6.5.

Here a screen shot of my desk top.

desktop of second PC

There are three visible windows of the running programs: SquawkBox3, ASV6.5 and VATSpy. WideClient runs in the background.

The weather program shows the current weather in EHAM and EDDF and is in control over the weather engine in FS9, providing me the current weather (a beautiful feature!).

VATSpy gives information about who is on-line and where at the VATSIM network.

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