September 2024

Erik is working on his instrument rating and built a simulator that mimics his panel to get practice. Susan is going to start on her rating as soon as Erik finishes and their plane is out of the paint shop. He started with just the yoke and Xplane from when they were working on their private license and started adding components. All in it was about $3,000. The gaming computer he bought at Costco was $2,000 and the srceens $750 but all the rest was relatively inexpensive. There are people who make plug-ins for X-Plane so you can make your panel look just like the one in your plane. There is also a USB board that you can plug various switches and buttons into to have it act just like your plane. He even has his iPad in the same location as in his plane and it tracks the flight. He also subscribed to Pilot Edge to work with real air traffic controllers on his approaches.