Over the Christmas break, sitting on a beautiful beach I spent a bit of time sketching out the direction I wanted to take in my hobby. One of the key decisions was changing direction of the Skyhawk (we shall call he ’58), away from the VR/DCS path I had started heading down. After a couple of VR test flights in the cockpit I came away somewhat underwhelmed, and I think it was diluting what ’58 was all about. So after some soul searching I decided to change back to using MS FS in ’58, but to move to FSX:SE and to investigate VRS TacPack. TacPack offers a ‘Combat Environment’ within FSX, allowing me to shoot guns, drop bombs, fire rockets and shoot sidewinders. This is basically what I had always wanted to do in the Skyhawk anyway, with the added bonus of being in a somewhat familiar simulation environment, in which I can develop content.

Tonight, I did some *more* PC shuffling, and moved the TA-4K sim PC back into the server ‘pile’, hooked it up to the KVM switch and did some TacPack testing. I flew 2 ‘Tacpack Powered’ aircraft; the T-45 Goshawk, and S-3 Viking, playing around with dropping bombs and firing rockets.

TacPack not only lets you drop bombs and shoot stuff, it allows you to add SAM sites, Carriers, Drones and Tankers to the environment in real time. Unfortunately I selected the wrong ‘team’ for the Carrier to be on…. and so it defended itself with RIM-7 Sea Sparrows…..

Which made short work of my Combat Hoover….

From these quick tests I can see that I have plenty of options for getting ’58 ‘Combat Ready’ using FSX:SE

There is a tool which applies TacPack weapons and sensors to almost any aircraft in FSX which I will be experimenting with to try and get a workable Skyhawk into the sim, using Nigel’s TA-4K model. It’s *another* change of direction, but I am comfortable that this is the right way to go.

3D printed, cleaned up and test fitted… my stick extension looks pretty good, and places the stick about where I wanted it.

Next up is creating a solid mount, then extending the wiring up through the extension, so that the switches all work.

After deciding that I would fit the ‘Cougar’ HOTAS to the Skyhawk it was time to actually do it… *and* to repair the broken gimbal arm.

First up was making sure the mounting concept was going to actually work. I borrowed Richards Warthog, with 150mm extension, and confirmed that it would all work where I had imagined. Interestingly the height I had ended up at almost exactly the same height as the Warthog on its base for Rich’s A-10C.

The height I had calculated is shown by the cut on the 50×25 steel box section

After confirming the height and location I fabricated a mount which sits on to of the steel box section (which was trimmed down by the thickness of the MDF mount) and is also secured to the front of the ejection seat. For now the stick base is only sitting in place, once the position is finalised I will secure it properly.

The mounting is not elegant, but it is solid, and should let me get flying again soon.

With the stick and throttle in place (albeit without a stick extension) and it looks ok. The size of the stick base does make access a little tight, so at some point I will have to build either a replacement housing for the gimbal, or a complete replication of the Skyhawk stick.

Now with the stick mount made, it was time to repair the previously broken gimbal.

I made a ‘C’ shaped brace to hold the broken part back in place. Here you see the ‘splint’ clamped in place ready to be drilled.

With the splint secured in place the roll gimbal is ready to reassemble into the base.

Returned to its place in the base. There is still some wear in the gimbal, so it will need replacing in due course.

The complete stick assembled, ready to seal up and reinstall in the sim.

After much soul searching, wringing of hands and generally procrastinating I have finally become comfortable with my plan to integrate my Thrustmaster Cougar HOTAS (yes, the one I recently broke) into the Skyhawk. It makes plenty of sense from an operations perspective, but the dilemma I had was that it is now drifting away from the original concept of being a fairly faithful representation of the Kahu update TA-4k.
So… my solution was to write my own version of history, which goes a bit like this…..

Imagine for a moment, that in 1999 the F-16 ‘deal of the century’ didn’t get canned…..
F-16’s entered frontline service with 75 Sqn, while 2 Sqn took over the entire fleet of Skyhawks.
They looked after strike training and conversion, as well as maintaining the base at Nowra supporting the RAN. They also took on an aggressor role for both the RNZAF based at Ohakea and the RAAF out of Nowra.
To ease the conversion from the A-4 to the F-16 some cockpit modifications were introduced to maintain procedural commonality across the Skyhawk/F-16 fleets. This included updates to the radar and HUD plus the HOTAS from the F-16

Therefore, as a reflection of the completely fictional Kahu-2 program I can justify my TM Cougar in my Skyhawk….
Seems legit to me 🙂

Source: The Authors own wildly vivid imagination

So.. with that sorted, it was time to perform some surgery on the cockpit to bring it up to the now totally legitimate “Kahu-2” Standard…..

First up I stripped out miscellaneous unused and random cables, then removed the current throttle… when this came out, I found extra cables, and **another** throttle quadrant, which had been kicking around under the ejection seat for who knows how long.

Next up, the Cougar Throttle was test fitted in the console, and ‘ergonomically’ tested. It feels really good in the pit, and apart from having to incline it slightly toward the seat for clearance on the outer wall it fits in really well.

Next up is was time to remove the current Saitek ST90 stick which has done many many years of sterling service, and then remove the steel mount..

And that is where it all came undone. The cockpit frame was made many, many years ago (scroll back through this blog if you don’t believe me) and my welding was pretty awful at best. I expected to be able to bend the mount back and forth a bit, and the weld would just give way. It was not to be. I sat in the cockpit yanking and stomping on the damn thing and it didn’t even so much as creak or crack! So.. into it with my blunt (as it turns out) hacksaw. Sweat, bourbon and skinned knuckles, and the stick mount is still standing proudly. Tomorrow I am borrowing an angle grinder from work… Then we’ll see who’s boss!