by Jody "Marvin" Levesque

  Then by the goodness of God I stumbled across a man by the name of Don Malko. Don is also building an authentic F-16 simulator, and has skillfully redesigned the F-22. Don gave it an extended neck and limited the deflection of the movements for a more comfortable feel for a side stick motion. Once I got the plans from him ( For free, great guy) I started on my own design. I could not believe that I totally hacked up and destroyed my $230.00 Canadian control stick!!

But after giving the F22 an extended neck and shortening the movements it looks and feels more like a real F-16 control stick. I then found a real F-16 handle with all working buttons, so ultimately I will get a real TQS lever, but as money flows slowly I had to have something else for now to get me by.

As I got pretty good with wood building, and with the plans of a real TQS lever assembly, I rebuilt the handle to my TM TQS out of hard oak 1X2s. It worked great. It is sturdy and has a very smooth action. The down fall is that with this extended leverage, I lose the feel of the MIL/AB detents. But I have many ideas to rig up something for that.

Panels

Another consideration for panels was authenticity and prices. Desktop sims has real F-16 backlit panels for 30,000 US. I on the other hand had the option of custom made panels by A.G.T. ( Advanced Graphic Technologies ).

Now these panels are not 100% exact but are very close as well as affordable, and are very versatile if you need to custom size them like I have done. Sean and John at A.G.T. provided excellent help, craftsmanship and service. I recently purchased their Falcon 4.0 panel packages, ACES II placard set, metal working gear handle, and some custom made HSI/MFDs and other panels.

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Comms

While building a home built sim, I wanted to get rid of the keyboard and mouse. Doing this brought a very important question. How will I implement the comms in Falcon as well as other commands like screen shots, and quitting the mission??

I first tried Game Commander. This is excellent voice activation software, which I tried to use just for comms. This worked very well, except I got real tired of hearing myself twice. My voice, "Sentry Declare, " then the computer pilot voice, "Sentry, Viper31, DECLARE!" and then the response, "Viper31, Sentry, target is hostile!" By this time, we did a typical TOP GUN fly by, "MiG 28s, no ones been this close before!"

So keeping this in mind, I have designed a F4 control panel, giving me access to all voice commands as well as my favorite external views, and pause and other sim commands in the form of hot keys. Maybe one day when I can convince Microprose to make the self talking pilot an option, I will be in heaven using my voice to talk to the computer!! (Note: MiG Alley includes the option to turn off your own voice.)

Audio

Many sim builders have gone all out into 3D surround audio systems pumping 1000 watts of power! I on the other hand asked myself, "What does a Viper driver really hear? " I figure he/she feels the vibrations of the F110-GE 100 pounding 29,000 pounds of thrust, and a few shutters from dropping bombs off the pylons. But headphone wise, nothing but mono radio noises and tones and warning cues. So I have mounted a 12" sub woofer with a bass crossover in the seat, with a 1000 watt Yamaha PA amp from my old studio equipment.

This gives me SA of my afterburners, as well as other low frequency noises. With the low band EQ I can even get the runway noises to shake a little. Then with a good bass sounding stereo amp and EQ I get nice stereo sounding wind noises of the canopy friction, and other internal sounds I made for a more realistic engine sound for Falcon including radio buzz resonating of the engine RPM. With all this and the tones of the heat seekers and RWR scopes it gives a nice surreal atmosphere!

Go to Part III