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The minute I saw it in the electronic 'zines, I knew I *had* to have it: Matrox recently released a "multiplexor" that
takes each line of a video card's VGA (analog) output and "splits" it into thirds, interleaving each set of line-thirds
out of three separate VGA ports, thus being able to feed three monitors from a single video card output port:
Soo... I anesthetized my significant other, took her credit card, and ordered three $180 Acer 19" monitors and the Matrox
multiplexor (around $240), and violá!
The 26" Sony monitor that previously was the main out-the-window display now looks puny compared with the three 19"s
and now is used as the left side window. The big display makes a big difference for non-precision approaches,
especially those long VOR finals 20 NM from the station, where you usually end up with the airport quite a bit off to
the side. And, orf course, the improvement in visual flying, especially the turn from base to final, is absolutely mindboggling.
The side window allows you to start the turn to base at the right time, although losing sight of the runway when you
dip the wing is inevitable. Circle-to-land training becomes possible but its still much, much more difficult than
in real life. The only consolation is that it's not any harder than in Flight Safety's two-window-display
Citation 550 FAA-certified simulator... (certified to satisfy the circling approaches requirement prescribed by
14CFR61.58, that is.) Running the front-looking triple display at x1.0 scaling and the side window at x0.75 scaling
seems to produce the best results.
If you compare the following picture with the ones in the previous pages (the "evolution" of my sim setup) you will notice
that I not longer have the setup in the corner of my laboriously-built custom table, but in the right-hand straight section.
To be able to use the mouse with the right hand, I built a custom "sub-table" with the unusual feature of lacking the right-hand
front leg (now, THAT took some engineering...) This allows me to slide the Jeep seat under that table
when I'm not using the sim.
Notice also that the stick now sits on top of the CPU enclosure, at a much more comfortable and natural height than before:
In order to get the 19" screens closer to each other, I removed the Acer LCD monitors' plastic enclosures. This
reduced the inter-screen gap from about 1.5 inches with the plastic enclosures to about 3/4":
The reason I originally tried to minimize the dead space between the monitors was to minimize the discontinuity
that apperas in the horizon when you bank the airplane. Then Matt Riggins pointed out to me that if you shift the outer
images towards the center the same amount as the width of the gap, the gap will behave like a window pillar: it will still
obscure the view, but THE HORIZON WILL NOT BE DISCONTINUOUS (see this picture):
Thanks, Matt, that rocks! In addition to removing the plastic enclosures, I removed some fasteners on the sides
of the metal frames whose head protruded from the sides, preventing the monitor frames from abutting cleanly each
other. Unfortunately, these screws held the LCD panels on to the frames. To prevent the LCD panels from falling
off, I replaced these screws with short unthreaded headless pins that do not protrude from the frames.
The LCD displays, much lighter than the CRTs, sit atop a read oak platform to get them to the required height above
the instruments (cheap read oak from Home Despot seems to have become my Wood of Choice...). This platform, like
the Sony's, has a strip of felt glued to the bottom edge of the vertical members to protect the surface of the table.
This also makes it very easy to reposition the monitors.
The Acer display stands are quite flimsy, so I had to add small flat brass plates between the monitors (taking advantage
of existing but unused threaded holes of which there seems to be an abundance on the monitor frames) to rigidize the assembly
and maintain the intermonitor spacing and alignement; notice that I did NOT angle the screens, to preserve the perspective
of the front view.
As you can see, the small circuits that contain the power on LED and monitor control pushbuttons are hanging from their
ribbon connectors (without the enclosures they don't have a place to mount - no problem).
Here's a nice shot of an airport I'm sure I will not be allowed to land on in the near future (KDCA, Washington
Reagan National... without any traffic... sure...) and the Eaglesoft Cirrus Avidyne display:
You can see in the picture that I did not use the small 8" display for the Cirrus/Avidyne implementation becuase of the
large size of the supplied Dual-430/S-TEC/flaps panel. Eventually I will edit it and distribute it a different way using
the 8" display (also, I may replace the Eaglesoft Garmin 430's with GoFLight knob-controlled RealityXP's like on
the Baron and Citation models shows in the previous pages). Note the slightly offset windows for the detached
PFD, MFD and radio/flaps stack panels on the 17" touch-screen panel. To move from one display to the other, simply touch
on the bezel of the display you want to see that protrudes behind the one on top. You can do this in flight and
it feels very natural. Evetually I'll get a second 17" CRT and touch screen... (so much to buy, so little money...)
A practical warning to others that may want to do something similar, that is, use ONLY the zoomed, undocked PDF and MDF
displays on Eaglesoft's Avidyne model: the "Main" panel (the one that has both the PFD and MFD) MUST BE DISPLAYED
WHEN THE AIRCRAFT IS INITIALIZED, otherwise you get an error situation in the displays... this took me a bit to find
out... that means that after you settle on the configuration window size, position, etc that you like, RESTORE THE
OTHERWISE USELESS MAIN PANEL BEFORE SAVING THE FLIGHT... if you fail to do so, restoring that flight will only result in the
above-described error situation.
I found that I could "turn" the Avidyne knobs by touching on the appropriate side of the displayed button (also "press"
the PFD knobs by touching their centers). I could also touch the flaps lever to set them. The S-TEC autopilot
implementation is pretty good - including going to GPSS mode by pressing "NAV" twice - especially if you remember
to touch between the ALT and VS buttons to replicate the "VS then ALT" sequence to arm the vertical capture mode - touching
them in sequence like you would on the real aircraft doesen't work.
Unfortunately I cannot use the same trick for the G-1000; the concentric knob's hotspots are too close to each other
to realistically "turn" the knobs by touching the hotstpos. This is also the case with the RealityXP 530, but the XP
product allows you to map keystrokes to knob turning and pushing. By judiciously choosing what keys to use, and using
FSUIPC to map GoFlight knobs to knob-rotating keystrokes (see Page 3) interfacing the GoFlight with the XP Garmin 530 works
like a charm. It would be wonderful if Mindstar could do the same thing with their otherwise excellent G-1000...
as with the Avidyne, touching the slightly protruding MFD under the PFD brings it to the foreground:
Next step is to attemp to isolate the audio/reversion control center panel into a separate strip. But enough for
now; I'm waiting the arrival of three 19" plastic Fresnel lenses I ordered Sunday from Hong-Kong... will report on how they
work.
Happy landings!
OCTOBER 18, 2006... just got my copy of Flight Simulator X Deluxe... am I a sim geek or what? Well... the GoFlight
modules DON'T START UNDER FSX!!! What the $%^#????
Later in 2066 update... GoFlight has released Fs-X-compatible drivers... but the Fs-X graphics slow down my system to
molasses... will stick to FS9 for the time being...
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