My VR cockpit for the TBM-930

I now have pretty much a fully functional TBM930 cockpit for VR flying. Last bit is the gear handle which I’ll build this weekend. All of the key switches and knobs for de ice, auto pilot, the touch screen, overhead, parking brake. Still tweaking to get the exact distances down but I’ve got it pretty close. It makes It very immersive… after a couple of flights I’ve pretty much got everything exactly down as far as feel. Hopefully some day we will get hand tracking which will make it that much better but for now, I can’t believe how well it works. We’ve come a long way since my days of FS95.

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Wow! This really is the dream! With a lot of real world flying experience this truly looks exactly what it looks like from the air. Cannot wait for weather to be in a better place. Gna be great! Happy New year!

You should go for a better seat on your rig. The original playseat is terrible in comfort and noisy! Replace it with a cheap race car seat - that matters! :wink: BTW: I hav a OMP on that rig.

HNY

I haven’t found comfort to be an issue. It’s certainly not a la z boy but for a 2-3 hr session it does fine.

Hi, your setup looks amazing! Congrats, it must be very enjoyable to fly in.

I also fly in VR and love the TBM-930, however, I’m not familiar with the types of technology you’re using for the switches etc. Are they functioning switches that are mapped in-game, did you build it yourself, and/or can this type of equipment be purchased off the shelf?

Thanks in advance.
Cheers

They are all functioning. I am using MobiFlight for integration. There is a great developer community there. I’m a complete novice and was able to put everything together in a few days.

Well done. TB930 is a favorite of mine. I’m also a VR user and will never fly 2D again lol. What you have done is the future of tactile cockpits. What you need is to have the same switches in the same relative location as you would reach for them in the VR cockpit. Like you said, having virtual hands to show you the position would be perfect. I would also like to have mockup G1000 panels with just the switches and buttons. Being in VR the screen of the G1000 is not required. 3D printing with a bunch of switches and buttons is the way to go.
No need for screens or displays of any kind since that will be seen in the VR cockpit. This is the future. Just need to get good reliable hand tracking in the sim to positionally show your hand in relation to the switches/buttons/knobs and match that up with the location of your replica button boxes. That is the future.

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Well done. TBM is a pleasure to fly, surely much more with your rig.

Would you be willing to share your mobiflight config file? I’m having the hardest time configuring those 3 way switches on the overhead. I’ve finally gotten the landing/taxi light switch to work, but not the others. No matter what settings I use from HubHop, they don’t work. Maybe it’s the type of switch I bought?

Interesting approach. I went another way: instead of trying to model exact switch placement of one plane, I created 2 compact control boxes that work the same with all plances, but functions can be varied as needed. Also using MobiFlight. I have a 6 dual encoder + 8 buttons box, and a switchbox with elaborate gear lever (pull-slide-lock). Muscle memory kick in soon and i can always get to the right place pretty easily. Knobs and switches are compactly place and of different shapes so I can always know what I’m doing. Works pretty well. I have a topic about my rig here and here’s a detailed video:

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How do you operate the intertial separator switch? Do you find a way to map it to an external device?

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