Building a B-17 Simulator

[Geewiz]

Greetings all....newbie here:

I am at the start of a project to put together a portable B-17 flight simulator. This simulator will be used at a reunion of the 401st bomb group, attended by the (remaining) veterans of the B-17 base at Deenethorpe during WWII.

I'm looking for suggestions and ideas relating to creating as realistic an experience as possible using off the shelf hardware and software.

The core simulator will be based around a suitably powerful PC and graphics card, using XP SP2 Pro, MS FLightSIM 2004, and one (or more) of the available B-17 add-on packages.

I'll want a yoke/throttle system and, possibly, rudder controls. My initial idea will be to construct a cockpit-like enclosure using PVC pipe shrouded in black fabric. The interior will seat 4 people (on folding chairs) in 2X2 configuration. My idea is to mount an LCD projector to display to the front of the cockpit, using a small table on which to mount the control yoke and throttle.

Using a dual display graphics card, I'd like to have a monitor showing a chase plane view.

I'd really appreciate any suggestions about this project, and any ideas that I could employ to make this a fun and reminiscent experience for these veteran fliers of the B-17.

My apologies if I haven't posted this in the right forum, but I will appreciate any help and benefit of experience that others might have.

Thanks!
Joe

[DBII]

Sounds like fun. To bad you cannot add the gunners.

DBII

[Wurger]

Welcome,

And bombs DBII .
An interesting project.I think there are guys who can hellp with that.

[DBII]

You must have bombs. You could always wire up the old B-17 Bomber game for the old Intellivison gaming system. I think they also had a Commodore 64 version. You could get a seperate sound card to plug in and the game would talk to you, I know hard to beleive . Jump over to the nose and line up the bombing run, A Bf 109 comes in and you have to pop over to the waist gunner postion. Watch out for the flak. Now days you can have a nice simulator with multiple postions. All it take is money

DBII

[Wurger]

[carbine]

B17 Flying Fortress II The mighty eight from Microprose if you can find it.
B-17 Flying Fortress 2 reviews and resources

One of the best flight sim games i have played.

[Wayne Little]

Geewiz, that sounds like some project... Welcome and good luck with it!

[Njaco]

Check this thread for some pics of the interior cockpit of a B-17.

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/war...24-a-7244.html (My Pics of Collings Foundation B-25, B-17 and B-24)