Having actually succeeded in writing a Christmas letter this year, and in the process, finally told people about this site, I guess I’m committed.  So assuming anyone is actually reading this, welcome! And if you find it interesting, let me know, and I’ll try to do more posts over the next year.

Meanwhile, I thought I’d write a bit about what I’ve been doing lately. I decided that trying to work on my programming project over the holidays would be too distracting – both for my project, and for enjoying Christmas. So I took December off and only “worked” on fun stuff with no real priority– specifically, learning 3D printing, and something I’ve been wanting to do for more than 30 years now: building a flight simulator cockpit.

I’ll start with the 3D printing. I bought an entry level printer (a Creality Ender 3) a few months ago, just to try it.  Starting at “entry level” was probably a  mistake. After upgrading the controller board and software, replacing the LCD display with a color touch-screen version, and adding a bed leveling sensor and a glass bed, Mike and I turned it into the equivalent of a souped up Dodge Dart (way better than stock but still… a Dodge Dart).  So for Christmas, I got a much better one (a Creality CR-X) with a dual-filament extruder, and with all the stuff we had to add to the first one already included, and gave Mike the old one to use at home.

It’s Mike’s enthusiasm that’s making it interesting. I might have gotten frustrated and given up already, but he’s not only figuring out how to get the printers to work reliably, but also rapidly mastering Fusion 360, a high-end 3D modeling program. I’m excited about us being able to make custom parts now, not just download and print existing designs.

The flight simulator cockpit is a longer story.

One of the first computer “games” I ever played on my first PC back in 1985 was Microsoft’s Flight Simulator. It was pretty lame on such low-powered hardware, but that was followed by one called “Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Trainer” that worked better, and then faster computers and even better programs. I was hooked.

A few years later I was at a Comdex conference where I was allowed to spend 5 minutes running Microsoft’s latest (at the time) FS program on one of IBM’s new “PS/2” computers with their awesome new “VGA” graphics, on a “huge” (at the time – maybe 25 inch?) monitor, with a yoke, throttle and rudder pedals, set up in a one-seat cockpit.

I’ve seen pictures of lots of other flight simulator setups, as well as driving simulators, over the years. They’ve gotten better and better, but I’d mostly lost interest – until recently, when Microsoft’s new FS software was released a couple months ago.  I now have the time, and the costs have come down to the point where it isn’t crazy, (the two 50″ TVs were only about $200 each), so I decided it was time to finally build my own.

The 3-view drawing of the design, and a picture of the parts, are posted under My Projects. You can see that it includes a steering wheel and gas/brake pedals as well as joystick and rudder pedals. It’s not intended to be a “perfect imitation” of say, a Cessna 172, like I’ve seen lots of on Pinterest. Mine will be a generic “cockpit” simulator, for flying, driving, running a “mech warrior”, navigating through space, or whatever. (I think I’m going to have a lock on the “coolest grandpa ever” competition!) I plan to post more pictures and the implementation notes as a blog post when I’m done.

Anyway, that’s enough for the moment – If I turn these posts into articles, I’ll never finish or post anything – so I’ll wrap this up by saying “thanks for visiting!” and hope to see you around.