This YouTube channel is converting a 3,287-hour FAA-certified flight simulator into a gaming PC-based sim rig and it wants your help

As impulse-based purchases go, this one’s a doozy. The team behind YouTube channel Angry Zeppelin normally cover RC aircraft builds, but they’ve picked up an auction find to end all auction finds—a used modular flight deck and professional flight simulator setup built by Precision Flight Controls, a manufacturer of FAA-certified sims.

The plan? To interface its remaining systems with a gaming PC, a few LCD monitors, and the odd tablet to create a flight sim setup to make even the most gear-equipped simulator nerd green with envy.

The flight deck itself shows 3,287 hours on the clock, but host Jared thinks that this was likely to be mostly idle time, as the seats look to be in remarkably good condition (via Hackaday). While the system looks relatively intact from the outside, it’s missing some key components—like the massive wraparound projector screen that would normally sit in front of it, and some of the backline computers that would interface with the dials and controls.

The team are currently hunting for parts that will help hook up many of the systems, including the motion control setup, and are hoping that the flight sim community at large will have some ideas as to how to make them interact with standard, non flight sim specific components. That being said, they’ve already got a good idea of how to build the new backline itself, which will consist of three rack-mounted computers with reasonable specs—each containing something like a 12th-Gen Intel CPU with an RTX 30-series GPU on board.

Hmm. It’s not bad hardware, I grant you, but if Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is the goal, may I suggest going for something beefier, at least for the PC running the sim itself? We’ve found it to be quite the system-killer, although it’s the RAM requirements that really give many setups issues.

Anyhoo, the Angry Zeppelin team is also reaching out for feedback on the displays. Multi-monitor is almost certainly the way to go here, but as to sizes, they’re really not sure what to pick and in what configuration. The budget isn’t mentioned, but I don’t suppose it stretches to something like this Asus 135-inch Micro-LED panel, does it?

Yeah, it’d probably be a pain to configure, given that the actual viewing area over those huge controls amounts to something of a small window. Really, that’s this project all over, I reckon—a good idea on paper, but with many, many sim-specific details that are likely to cause headaches at every step along the way.

Still, I can’t wait to see how it all turns out, and I like the idea of reaching out to the flight sim/PC hardware community for ideas as to how to pull it off. By the end of it, with a little luck, this might end up being the one flight sim rig to rule them all, sure to make any of us who fool around with some of the best PC joysticks jealous.

Now, if I could only find a room to house one in. I don’t suppose anyone’s got a reasonably-priced house with a massive spare bedroom on the market at the moment, have they? Asking for a friend.

Andy built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 12, when IDE cables were a thing and high resolution wasn’t—and he hasn’t stopped since. Now working as a hardware writer for PC Gamer, Andy’s been jumping around the world attending product launches and trade shows, all the while reviewing every bit of PC hardware he can get his hands on. You name it, if it’s interesting hardware he’ll write words about it, with opinions and everything.