Feature image: Screenshot from Russ Barlow on YouTube
In the previous update I shared some thoughts as to why I was building a home cockpit, you can read that here.
Today I will be focusing on which monitors to use for the home cockpit I’ll be building.
My inspiration came from The Sim Simma on Youtube, in this video:
Which led my research to Russ Barlow on YouTube who has a lot of good information on flight simming and home cockpits, for example this video where he (at around 8 minutes in) starts to talk about field of view etc:
So I came to the conclusion that I needed three 55″ TV’s, in a setup such as this (which would give me slightly more than 180 degrees total field of view):
The angle at which the side TV’s are placed at, also gave me a bit more space inside the cockpit. Compared to a real-life cockpit. Not an immersion killer for me, but it’s nice to be able to move around a bit more without hitting the sides of the cockpit 🙂
In this setup, with a 55″ TV in front that’s around 120cm wide (the W = 48″), it means my eyes should be around 86cm (the D = 34) from the front display to have as close to real-life-size as possible.
An alternative which I often see used by home cockpit builders on YouTube, is this setup:
This gives even more total Field of View than my setup does, but at the cost of being more cramped.
Which TV?
Ask 5 people which TV to buy for your flight sim and you’ll get 5 different answers. You can consider hz, black-level, display technology, bezel size etc etc etc.
I quickly learned that it was difficult to find all the necessary specifications online for all TV’s, and reviews were only done on a few of the TV’s I had available locally.
So I went to a local shop that had a nice return policy. Purchased one TV and tested it out. It was just 60 hz and no fancy stuff. Almost the cheapest I could found. I was satisfied. So I went back after two more.
And here’s how it looked after I set them up. The cardboard is “me playing pilot as if I were 5 years old”. Nah, I’m just sizing out my cockpit panel, where to make cutouts for when I buy MDF board.
In conclusion. What TV to get? I went with the near-cheapest I could find locally and so far I’m satisfied. I won’t be needing my simulator for fast paced racing games, so hz and/or ghosting is not a major concern to me. Your mileage may vary.
As you can see on the photo above, I have the Honeycomb Alpha (yoke) and Bravo (throttle). Which I need to be integrated into my home cockpit as well. The Logitech/Saitek radio panel will not be used. It feels rather cheap and clunky. There are better, and pricier, options out there. A good entry-level panel though.
And here I’m testing out a 24″ monitor with Air Manager software running the instruments (haven’t even gotten around to remove the protective corners on the TV’s yet…):
For more Flight Simulator / Home Cockpit building related articles, click here.