Building a CASA certified flight sim for home use
 

I am interested in building a basic flight simulator for use at home that can be certified by CASA (Australia) for IFR recency. The aircraft I'm interested in is any model of Cessna 172, with Garmin 430 or a similar GPS unit.

Does anyone have experience building something like this and getting it certified by CASA?

First of all learn about what a flight simulator is, then learn what a synthetic trainer is.

This may help…

https://www.casa.gov.au/search-centr...aining-devices

https://www.casa.gov.au/sites/defaul...iners-fsd2.pdf

From the definitions table in one of the docs in your links:
Synthetic Flight Trainer: Flight simulator or synthetic trainer.

Anyways, leaving aside the semantics, keen to hear from anyone who's built a basic one at home and managed to get it casa certified. What components did you use?

As CASA don't certify simulators, no one can advise you.

I'm not in CASA country but (following on from some work I did, indirectly, for NASA) in the naughties I designed and constructed a C172 FTD for use as an IFR trainer by a commercial training establishment. While it'd take quite some time + work I see no reason why you couldn't construct one for home use. Following is a little info that may be useful:

Although not necessary (ie. you could easily construct your own) I used an original control column from a 172, and rudder pedals from a 140 or 160, the latter because they fitted more easily within the physical design parameters I'd set than the 172 pedals would have. Also original were various switches, and the throttle, mixture and carb heat controls. These were connected directly to an interface board, or to a pot that was itself connected that board, then to a computer. They could easily have been replicas, or even new originals, but for this prototype I used secondhand units that were available to me. These were either faulty or had been replaced in an a/c due to hour requirements, but were modifiable and usable for my purposes.

The frame (which was the exact size of a 172 cockpit), all the instruments, trim and flap controls, and the avionics stack were designed and/or constructed by me to conform to original. I have a colleague who modified original instruments in their design; that worked well too, but to my mind it was quite complicated work and as I was looking at producing these en masse I needed a solution that was easily and inexpensively reproducible.

If I were building such a machine today I'd probably use a glass cockpit, which would be mechanically simpler than what I did back then (although, having gone through the initial design angst, it's simple to manufacture more 'steam' instruments), I'd also use hall effect sensors rather than carbon pots, and maybe refine one or two linkages etc. Otherwise I see no reason to alter the fundamental design to any significant degree.

The device was successful and was used by the establishment until they closed. It was also found to be effective in assisting with certain aspects of VFR student's flying, such as crosswind landings, and simple cockpit familiarity.

Below is an early photograph showing some of the instruments after I'd assembled them, and the prototype device itself during installation. The instruments were designed in AutoCAD and cut out of sheet steel with a CNC laser, they used servo or stepper motors to drive the pointer or background. LCD and LED displays were also used in various cases.

The photo of the device itself shows some of the internals, the frame, and the facia with most of the instruments installed, so should give a reasonable idea of what it was like and how you might construct one yourself. When properly installed this has cover panels and multiple screens etc. I also had it on a motion platform at one stage but this isn't really required for transfer of learning, and it made it somewhat more cumbersome.


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....dd9a709e45.jpg
Aircraft instruments for Flight Training Device
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....cdd300539d.jpg
Flight Training Device during installation, showing frame, some internals, and facia.

CASA does “qualify” flight simulators, which is kinda the same thing as certification, in the simulator world.

Have a look at Subpart 60.B of CASR and the AC for Part 60, hdus001. (Then ask CASA for an estimate of the fee it would charge you to have your simulator qualified. That estimate may be - hmmmm - eye opening.)

Ah but it's not the same thing. You certify a product line and all follow ons are identical whereas you qualify individual units uniquely.

The benefits to the simulator operator is both cost and the ability to innovate and modify with greater ease. (The TDMs and probably OEMs would much prefer the certification route as that would open up yet another revenue and control stream for them!!

Thanks, will do. I did hear about someone who built one based on the Elite At-11 software and an Elite Avionics stack and had someone from CASA come home and inspect it and got the paperwork done so it can be used for IFR recency. This is all second hand information, unable to contact that person directly, so trying to understand more detail / other alternative options from those who've done this before. I have emailed Elite too to see if they can provide any guidance.

interested to know how i can build my own casa certified simulator that can be logged for IFR