Today, couple of interesting examples of Volair Sim in action.
The first application is use of the cockpit with four monitors. The way to make it work is ingeniously simple (courtesy of Andy – one of customers). Flip the center avionics table support tubes180 degrees and voilà, the 4th monitor support is ready. Just drill 4 VESA holes in the table depending on the size, position, bolt pattern, and of the 4th monitor and you are done. Andy actually elected to make the 4th monitor removable (by using an inexpensive VESA mount) but this is purely an optional step. Great work!
As you know, both ATI and nVidia support four monitors (Eyefinity and nVidia Surround are the trade names for both companies). The trick is that the 4th monitor is not to be used for the sim as part of the 3 monitor “wrap-around” but rather as a 2D monitor (which is fine for gages, radios, GPS, etc). See Andy’s cockpit below with the 23″ Hannspree touch-enabled monitor.
The next logical question here is the software that would interface with the sim and would display the gages and interface the screen to the sim. For combat sims, you have at least two choices – Touch Buddy and Helios.
Andy writes, “Helios uses LUA export data from DCS and also Falcon 4 to export data from the game. Helios actually knows the correct positions of all of the switches, gauges, dials, ect.. In this way it is better than TB, but it is specific to certain sims that he has designed it for. Also, the Helios designer has pre-made switches and buttons built into it that you can use. Touchbuddy requires you to create (or borrow) your own graphical buttons and switchs. So that is another nice thing about Helios.”
The second example, courtesy of John – another customer of ours, is using our center stick mount with Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS. . As you know, we are factory pre-drilled for this very common HOTAS system (in addition to Saitek X-52). See a few photos of this in action and notice how John mounted dual throttle stack plus a trim wheel for multi-engine applications…
John writes, “I am still doing test runs with my sim pit cable management, and working on my entertainment center setup mods. I am using a 46″ Samsung Tv for viewing now without the momitor mount assembly (modified desk)….Thank you again my friend for this product and your friendly approach. You guys have confirmed your comments and others reviews!!! Voltaire Sim is the awesome!”