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Western Mass Wright Flight introduces students in grades 7 through 12 to the field of aviation, its history, the principles of flight, and the many career opportunities available in the aviation industry.This program is provided to students in Westfield, Southwick, Granville, and Tolland, MA and supports the STEM goals of the local middle and high schools. It is a a volunteer organization based out of Barnes Airport in Westfield, MA.

Volair Sim is proud to have been selected by Mass Wright Flight as the hardware vendor for their flight sims. Bill Coughlen of Mass Wright Flight writes, “We are very impressed with the design and manufacturing quality of your panel and pleased with the price point you’ve been able to establish.”

Here are a few photos of the cockpit that Bill and his team have assembled. Check out the creative combination of using an iPad together with the Saitek/Logitech Flight Instrument Panels.

We are so happy the mission of Volair Sim to provide affordable flight simulation solutions is being fulfilled through educational institutions such as Western Mass Wright.

The Volair Sim team has been busy working on a bunch of exciting accessories for your Volair Sim cockpits:

• Effective immediately, Volair Sim cockpits and accessories are factory pre-drilled for Saitek X-55 HOTAS.

• We are pleased to announce availability of a Volair Sim Arm Rest Kit. This kit has been developed especially with HOTAS users and pilots in-mind. As you all know, having an arm-rest is crucial to precision flying especially when using a joystick. In fact, fighter jet and commercial pilots will tell you that an arm support a mandatory equipment for many airplanes. Of course, like all Volair Sim designs, the arm rests are fully adjustable forward/aft/up/down/in/out. They are also angle-adjustable so you can achieve a perfectly comfortable position. They flip up for easy cockpit entry. Few photos below:

• Next, due to numerous customers’ requests, an additional universal side mount kit is now available:

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This side mount kit, mountable on right or left side (allowing you now to have double side mounts), is factory pre-drilled for the following controllers:

• Saitek Pro Flight X-55 Rhino H.O.T.A.S. (Hands on Throttle and Stick) – NEW!
• Saitek X-52 System
• Logitech G27 Shifter
• Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog
• Saitek Thottle Quadrant(s) and/or Saitek Cessna Trim Wheel.

• Last but not least, we have manufactured a limited amount of left keyboard mounts. These allow you to move the keyboard and the right throttle mount from the right to the left side of the seat. The quantity of these is very limited, so if you need one, order it ASAP.

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!”

• For all of your racing sim fans, check out the new review at Inside Sim Racing where Darin and Shaun put the Volair Sim through its paces (or should we say turns) and give the racer’s review of the rig.

• Next, check out this review and photos from Eyad, one of our customers. Eyad is a private pilot and intends to use the Volair Sim as a personal training and proficiency device (in addition to being the guy with the coolest toy at his airport, without a doubt). One of the cockpit parts was damaged in shipping so we sent him a replacement. Here is what he writes in reply,

“First of all I would like to thank you for rushing me the support tube last week, I really appreciated your help and the great costumer support. I also want to thank you a million times for inventing and making this awesome cockpit, I am having a wonderful and great time with this project, without your cockpit none of this would be possible…. Thaaaaaank you. I thought I would send you some pictures of the work in progress and tell you about few modifications I did this weekend on the Volairsim cockpit and see what you think.”

I think you will all agree we have here one of the best-looking and most complete Volair Sim rigs we have seen to-date!

• Lastly, the center stick mounts are in very short supply. If you own a Volair Sim cockpit and think about getting the center stick, please order soon or you will have to wait until mid-November until we make the next batch.