Flight Simulator Cockpits

Like everyone else here, I am building a cockpit.  I have a farily good background in simulation, since I was a staff systems engineer at Link Flight Simulation, and was a sim tech in the USAF.
My main problem is in the fabrication of the cockpit.  The electronics I am fine with.   I want to build a fairly generic aircraft around an F-22 or F-16 cockpit.  Unfortunately, I am not rich, and am not crackerjack with lumber....I am going to have to be careful.,,,but I hope I can do it.
I find much of today's technology facinating for many reasons.  While working for Link Flight Simulation, we needed to develop a real time engineering model of the Remote Manipulator Arm used in the Aft Crewstation and bay of the Space Shuttle.  It required 30 million floating point operations a second.  Remember, this was 1983 or 4.  We looked at a Cray 1 XMP, which could do 80 megaflops, and cost 14.5 million dollars.  The PC I am typing this blog on does about 5 times that, and costs under a thousand dollars.
I also helped build the Closed Circuit TV simulator for the payload bay....which was a black and white visual system that would give a picture to the astronaut of what he was doing with the arm.  Some of of the wilder things it had to do were things like movable and directional (3d) lighting, and the casting of shadows.  The boxes we used to generate these images cost in the nature of 12 million dollars each, whereas, today, this same PC can do it and in fact, do a much better job of it.
The I/O systems we used to poll switches, drive indicators, etc. filled a huge room.  Today, I can buy a circuit card from Open Cockpits or Hagstrom Electronics for $169, and put it behind a piece of wood.  Even better than that, I can go to the Open Cockpits website, and download the circuit design, print it using my $400 laser printer, then Iron it onto a copper clad board....drop it in Hydrochloric Acid with Hydrogen peroxide, and etch it myself.  I can then order the parts from the internet stores somewhere in cyberspace, and build the boards myself CHEAP.
Technology has really changed, for the better.  Some people will buy a $15 keyboard, cut it up, and build their own interfaces out of the circuits in the keyboard. (I have to try that myself).
Heck, for just over $3000, I can buy a complete F16 cockpit from Korea....although I am sure it will cost that much to ship as well.
So, I am getting started on my own project.  And it begs a lot of questions.  Has anyone ever tried interfacing their computer and simulator hardware to an RC airplane?  Build a kind of UAV out of their cockpit, sending the GPS signals and video feed back to their simulator, and controlling the RC Plane with their cockpit?  If anyone ever tries that, I would LOVE to find out how they did it, what kind of difficulties they encountered, etc. 
Now, on to my cockpit.
One thing that I learned at Link was to keep cable bundles neat and clean.  We made good use of that black waxed string, and it was even a work of art to see a properly wired panel.  I have noticed that some folks need some work on their neatness.  I am generally one of them, having rats nests of cables....
One supplier I am making use of for cable runs is Winford Engineering http://www.winford.com/.  They have good materials for db-25 cables and connectors.  If you are rich, buy the connectors with the screw posts for the breakout wires.  They run about $20 each.  If not, buy the circuit board mounted ones for $8 or so.  What these will do, is allow you to run a bundle of wires (25 of them) by running a male to male DB-25 cable.  If you, like me, plan to put your IO controllers in a stack of boards, and locate them in the nose of your simulator, this will allow you to keep a neat run from the nose to the center of each panel group.  You use the female breakouts to then wire from the DB-25 to the switches and indicators.  This will make you happy when you need to break down the simulator, and rebuild it when your wife kicks you out of your living room/den/dining room, and you have to move your sim into your dog house.  It will be easy to tear it down into modules.  Just be sure to label everything very well.  Create a system of labeling, and stick to it.
I am planning to compile a guide book for cockpit building, using ideas (and stealing web pages) found on the web.  I WILL GIVE CREDIT to whomevers material I reference or use....and the first one I am going to credit is http://www.fscockpit.com.  This is where I started my research, and his website gives a lot of links and a lot of very good advice.  The only reason I would compile something beyond what he has done is my own ego....and that I want to document what I have done and why.  I will try to glean as many building tips as I can find, and include them.  If building a laser CNC pantograph is part of what I do, then I will include those instructions, etc.  I want something with blueprints, design diagrams, how to guides, and things of that sort.  And I want it in a hardcover book form.  (oh, Sears has a router pantagraph, which would be useful for engraving letters into plexiglas or whatever your country calls acrylic sheets)  I have bought but not yet received mine, I plan to hook a Dremel rotory tool to it, and have a go at making my own panels.  Failing that, I will buy them premade, or use one of the panel suppliers.
Well, TTFN.JimB

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