After the skeletons of the two side consoles were painted, it was time to prepare the future room of the simulator.
This used to be my workshop, which has now been compressed into a small adjoining room. The simulator and the control system are installed in this 25 sqm room
I first had to dismantle the old extraction system in order to completely clear the left corner.
In this area the 2.70mx 2.70m projection room is created
At some point I took a wrong turn and started making model trains in TT gauge and later N gauge as a hobby. I enjoyed building models, but later I realized that you never really finish with a model train and can just "play" with it. After we moved into our house I had to dismantle the train again so that I could transport it. But I somehow didn't feel like doing it anymore and never built it again and later sold everything I had of it.
Building a flight simulator is also like model building. The model is the cockpit on a scale of 1:1. Here too, a high level of detail is required to make it look realistic. In my opinion, the advantage over a model railway is that you can finish it quickly and then fly. It's basically a transition from hobby model building to hobby flying. But model building remains, as there are always some optimizations to be made to the cockpit.
There are various statements about the future of the A10 in the US armed forces, but in 2020 it was decided that parts of the A10 fleet would be upgraded with new systems. You can also find information/details on the Internet that, for example, the central cockpit elements will be replaced by a multifunctional display (everything within the red frame). So there will always be a certain amount of model building later on.
For me, model building is also something that allows me to unwind after work.
You can create something physical that doesn't exist anywhere else. For me, that's a counterbalance to all the bits and bytes (and eventually the qubits :-)) in my job.
My fascination with airplanes has been with me since childhood. Back then, I lived about 500 meters from a glider airfield where small airplanes also took off and landed. Unfortunately, I never had the opportunity to live out this passion as a pilot. Over time, my fascination specialized in fighter planes.
I have always found the Fairchild-Republic A-10 jet particularly fascinating. Having grown up in East Germany, there is a historical connection to this aircraft. The A-10 was developed in the 1970s to destroy Soviet tanks on the plains of Northern Europe. If the Cold War had heated up back then, I would have found myself in the middle of a war zone - a terrible thought.
Thanks to modern software solutions such as the Digital Combat Simulator (DCS), it is now possible to simulate an aircraft and its use very realistically. DCS is not a simple computer game like ACE Combat 7, for example, where you can activate various flight aids. In order to fly an aircraft in DCS, you actually have to learn how to control it - like a real pilot.
More about DCS here
