hey everybody it's norm from tested and today i'm going to be reviewing and
going over the build process of this guy right here
what i'm sitting in which is a racing and flight simulator
cockpit this is something that i've wanted to put together and have in my
home office for the longest time and we
basically have all the technology to have an
arcade in your home between gaming computers your hotas your hands
on throttle and stick your force feedback
racing wheel and of course vr headsets you can bring
that experience of flying an airplane of being in the seat of a formula race
car bring that to an elevated level with the
ergonomics of a cockpit seat so this is the next level
racing [ __ ] it's kind of their middle of the
road journeyman cockpit there's a light
version it's a little more portable i wanted something
a little more sturdy and have all these accessories mounted to it
including uh the buttkicker tactile transducer the base shaker
that i tested i really love using and this is actually made
to work with that and this isn't a full motion simulator so
there's no multi-access forward feedback and movement
it's a static seat but ergonomically it helps me feel like i am in the
cockpit of a spaceship in the driver's seat of a
race car and it really adds to the immersion
especially with the vr headset of those simulators and arcade games
so let's flash back to the beginning of this month where i put this together and
talk over and go over that build process before we talk about
how it's performed okay today begins my assembly of this
next level [ __ ] simulator cockpit i have all the parts
unboxed already and laid out nulled out here on this rug
because this is where i'm going to be assembling it and
basically playing right now in my office i have my steamvr
lighthouse beacons in the corners of the room so right here i'm going to have
visibility line of sight to my vr headset
and it also is relatively close to my gaming pc
so everything can be connected there in terms of the headset in terms of running
the games off of that pc and also the accessories for my wheel
and also flight sticks i also have a laptop
just in case i want to run it off of that uh the whole thing
is basically going to end up being about 24 inches
wide uh and so give myself a couple of extra inches of clearance so basically
28 inches is what i want room for so if i have it
installed and set up here i'm still going to have space for
example open my shelves there are two different
configurations to set up this cockpit there's a formula orientation
where the seats lower your little more stretched out or the gt orientation
which is what i'm going to go with the seats higher which also lets me
mount the the posts for the butt kicker transducer
because this is made to work with that as well the assembly is going to
basically be in two halves first there is the the frame
that gets set up and connected basically for either orientation and
then there's also the seat of course that gets set up
those two get put together and then of course
there's you can adjust uh the wheel plate and the pedal plates
for for however you want to have it set up
i also have the combat flight accessory pack which is going to let me have
additional mounting points for flight stick and throttle because i
want to use this not only for racing games but also of course for
flight sims and for star wars squadrons coming out so
i'm really excited 10 let's get started building so i have all the hardware here
a bunch of m8 bolts nuts and washers they say
don't use power tools just hand tighten everything
so you don't risk stripping any of these and
i guess it's time for assembly
so while you're watching me put this together let me fill in some details
about this kit i had already unboxed everything but
it does come double box in a pretty sturdy packaging
it's a pretty heavy kit it's about a hundred pounds now
i did assemble this by myself but it would have been really easier with
two people that's not to say that it can't be done one person but
two i think would be recommended
the packaging gives you way more bolts nuts and washers than you need
but the clamshell packaging where all the hardware's included falls apart
pretty easily so i recommend sorting it all into some
bins beforehand that's something i wish i did
like i mentioned there are two positions for the seat and one of the big selling
points is that you can switch between the reclined formula
position to the upright gt position and in between 15 minutes to half an
hour only the gt position allows for the
butt kicker base shaker mount underneath the seat so that's what i went with
but i also elevated the pedals for what they call a hybrid position
that was better for my own height and ergonomic comfort
for putting the seat together you connect the base to
a frame and then the back via these two adjustable angle brackets with six bolts
on each side and this is the only place where you have a bolt with a built-in
adjustment knob to change the angle without bringing out the hex key again
which is pretty easy and i tried different angles but the upright
seat position just ended up being by far the best position
for the gt arrangement
the seat the wheel deck and the pedal plate are all on rails so you can loosen
the bolts and slide them and especially the wheel deck is
something you'll want to slide both the height which is an angle as well as the
distance away from where your hands are and your arms are
but every adjustment requires loosening and tightening a bunch of
different bolts so i don't see this as something you're
going to be adjusting on the fly for different users or friends who come over
and try it out you basically find the position that you like and then keep
it there
without the flight stick mounts mounted on the left and right side
the footprint of this ended up being about five feet by
two and a half feet in this gt position and the seat
is about four feet tall off the ground
and overall the assembly took me about an hour and a half to put together
okay i've put together the next level
simulation racing spaceship cockpit the whole process not too difficult just
took a little bit of time of course having your own set of allen
keys much better than the ones that come with
it but the ones that come with it will suffice
just might take a little more elbow grease i haven't tightened everything
yet but i did want to just get into the seat
to see how it feels and yeah all right i can imagine myself
shooting down some tie fighters in this a lot of configuration options i have
this in the of course the gt orientation
so elevated i stopped to attach a bunch of accessories but things that i need to
configure are for example uh the pedal plate how far it is away from
my feet the angle here that's all adjustable uh same with the
wheel plate here that angle i'm having it right now you
know obviously uh just parallel to the ground but this bar
can be raised and lowered depending on how i
want to hold the wheel i still need to attach the accessories
for my flight sticks and throttle and then i
can of course adjust the angle here lumbar support highly recommended for
this configuration but it's feeling pretty good i'm excited so
i have my wheel my flight stick the transducer as well
as other accessories to deck this out with and that's gonna be
our next step but first i'm sweating up the storm so i'm gonna
change the t-shirt i'll be right back
alrighty time for a check-in and i have to confess
a little bit of time has passed since we checked in last with
this build it's one of these projects where i really want to get ahead of
myself because i want to get to a point where i can make use of this and in this
case i really wanted to get in a game so i did get ahead of myself
and i went ahead and installed the combat flight pack
that's these two plates here along with these arms that mount onto the side
rails of the seat now the [ __ ] here
does include a small arm and a small plate for a gear shifter
and i considered using that for my throttle uh or my stick
but it's uh it was a little too small and it actually doesn't stick
out uh and so these do stick out and ergonomically i've got them in a pretty
comfortable position this is one of those things
where i want the throttle and stick actually to be
close to me because i don't want to be stretching out my arms
as i'm playing because ergonomically that's a little bit taxing so i want to
be in a nice resting neutral position and what i
found is one it does expand the width of this whole setup so
it's a lot more than that 26 to 28 inches
that i had built in but i still think i have enough clearance
in my space to make use of this and while there
are a bunch of adjustments you can make like i mentioned you know the seat can
be adjusted and you can move this these plates and
the angles of this for the combat flight pack there's only
so much you can dial in you can only kind of adjust it forward
or backward uh bolt it in there's no kind of
twisting of these plates or moving it up and down
it's not on a hinge system basically it's one of the things i i kind of wish
that was possible like a kind of like a magic arm that
you'd see on a camera setup where i could
loosen it up get it to a right spot and then lock it down
that's just not possible here now in terms of locking down
this flight stick and throttle i'm not going to be bolting them in because
they're they're relatively lightweight and i may still want to fiddle with
their placement and so i'm actually using some 3m low profile
dual lock this is basically their version of high strength
of velcro and a lot of people who've built their own
flight simulators have recommended using basically low profile velcro
for uh some not permanent attachment of their hotes setup you could also use
something like butyl that's like that tacky putty that
would you use to attach like a gopro to your car
dashboard or it's basically stronger than that like
earthquake putty you use to affix uh things to a shelf but
low profile velcro will work or you could just bolt it on if you want
the holes are all there plenty of holes on these plates
for that to work and i do have a laptop here
for easy accessibility for getting my games launched i got my
touch controllers and a rift s headset that i have plugged in
just to do some testing on this i did actually also
screw in that butt kicker base shaker and playing a game
like elite dangerous with my scitec x52 pros
in vr in this chair has been awesome so far i mean i think i spent an
hour and a half just playing some arena battles even
going through some of the old tutorial missions just to reacquaint myself
with the game and uh it's really exciting so
next up i'm gonna install the wheel and the pedals
and for that i've chosen a thrustmaster t300 uh wheel and this i will be bolting
on because this is pretty heavy and it
needs to be secure has force feedback and so that's our
next step so let's get to bolting that on
so we're now back to the present and after a couple weeks
of having this in my office and using it uh first of all i have to acknowledge it
takes up a big amount of space the footprint here
is is pretty substantial and while i
measured it out and given myself a bunch of accommodation
about two feet it ends up being wider than that because of where the
flight sticks are mounted they stick out quite a bit and so you
know it's a bit of an investment in space this is not a model that
collapses and stows away in a closet i chose the sturdier one
because i wanted the mount for the base shaker
and i don't have regrets there but it is something to consider if you're going to
be building your own flight seat and racing seat kit
like this one but in terms of the amount of immersion and
how much it brings to those games it is such an improvement i mean yes i was
already having a lot of fun in vr playing racing games wearing a
headset and using the bass shaker but having the
flight 6 mounted in a great spot having the wheel
secure here and not wobbly and not worried about it
you know coming loose and damaging or you know being
precariously mounted to my desk uh or my computer having a
dedicated space really really helps ergonomically um
while it does take a lot of space it does also feel very
compact everything is very accessible and also found that for the flight
sticks i actually want to move the seat up
as close as possible so my hands are in a nice resting position otherwise i do
have to extend them a little bit far um i completely
acknowledge this is one of those things it's completely luxury it's unnecessary
not essential for a gaming setup and if you're looking for
things to augment your flight sim gaming experience
like get a flight stick first of all get a racing wheel
if you're gonna be playing racing games and after that get a vr headset because
those things combine i think make up you know 80 of the experience
um that bass shaker i think also really really adds to the immersion uh
because this isn't a motion simulator and
just a little bit of haptic feedback tied to the low end of the sound of the
games you know the rumble flying through a
spaceship when blowing up a ship in the lead dangerous and
feeling it rattle here uh that just makes it feel
like i'm in an arcade and um it's a nice balance of getting extra immersion
without having to have a full motion simulator built out
which would take even more space so i have no regrets about
setting this one up it doesn't include casters and that is something
that i will look to add to this model and
all this is kind of leading up to the culmination
of playing star wars squadrons and so i'll be reviewing that
using this setup using a vr headset i have the rift s
plugged in this right now yes i had this set up where it's going to be in view of
you know my steam vr base stations but i find the convenience of having a single
cable whether for the rift s or uh something like the quest 2 with
the link cable that convenience of having it plugged in
my laptop i think just makes it easier to set this up and get
in here i have my desktop a couple feet away but you know having to have the usb
cables routed to that plus the audio cable for the base shaker
and of course the hdmi cable displayport cables for
the vr headsets that's just an extra step that while i've tried it a
couple of times i'm defaulting to my gaming laptop for now um but i'd love
to know what your experience has been like if you've put together
your own you know racing seat or a flight seat a cockpit for
simulators or you put together a kit like this one what are your tips for
making it work for you please post in the comments below but
i'll be back next time with more coverage of games and gear
that make use of this setup i have now thanks for
joining me on this journey and i'll see you next time bye