One of the folks I’ve been fortunate to get to know through this blog and my YouTube channel is a Frenchman (now living in Belgium) who goes by the handle Taxi Into Position And Hold. He’s often in the chat on my YouTube streams, and as a real-world pilot and builder of his own very impressive simulator he always has meaningful contributions to the discussion.

And now we can all benefit from his point of view

, as he’s launched his own blog and YouTube channel. Give them a look. Look, too, at his C-172 sim panel, which is about at close to the real thing as one can get. It’s truly remarkable work and a beautiful addition to the simulation community. Here’s a peek.

One of the things I like about the forums here — at least when I have time to read them — is people posting pics of their home cockpits. There are so many cool designs and so much passion and enthusiasm behind them. It’s really great to see. One regular reader and viewer on my YouTube stream is “Taxi Into Position And Hold” (should I start calling him Tipah?). He’s built a C 712 panel that really is a work of art. Witness …

Marco has added a fabulous series of posts in the forums about his Cessna cockpit build. He clearly knows his way around a wood shop and has done some really beautiful work. Check it out.

OTG reader and forum contributor Frank Mignone (“Spankybus” in our forums) has a new website, and it’s beautiful. What’s more, it highlights the working Garmin GSN 530 (for X-Plane) he just made for himself. It’s amazing work. Well done, Frank. You show what’s possible in one’s own workshop.

Last week I was very flattered to learn that the Basement Sim has been an inspiration to the aviation STEM class at Hayesville High School in Hayesville, NC. Scott Hanna is one of the instructors for the course, and he forwarded me a link to the video below that shows the remarkable work they’ve done. The students were the driving force in construction, and Scott is justifiably proud of what they’ve built. As should they all be.

As fate would have it, when I was in junior high school our school had an aviation club, taught by an English teacher who had flown B-17s in WWII. There were only a few of us in the club, and it didn’t last very long. But one of the things Mr. Williams had as a resource in one of the resource rooms of the school was a WWII-era Link Trainer that looked a lot like this one:

We spent quite a bit of time in that Link, and it did a lot to feed my passion for flying. So I suppose when I say my first sim was SubLogic FS1 on the Apple II, I’m inaccurate – my first sim was that Link. As you’ll see, Scott has provided his students with something quite a bit more advanced than that. That’s fantastic, and I hope they enjoy it.

Finally, the class is competing in the national Fly To Learn program. I hope they win. Go Yellowjackets!

… and what he’s building in his garage:

Very cool.

Look at THIS sim.

The OTG Facebook page recently received a like from this gent, and what a sim setup he’s chosen to run!

Over on the AVSIM Home Cockpit Builders forum I found a great home cockpit project going on in Europe. You may see it here. It’s really great work, and I look forward to seeing it come together. The tops of plastic cups for the bezels – brilliant!