A few days ago a large and unkempt man came to my door with a HUGE box. I figured it was a practical joke so I gave him a hard time. When I picked myself up later and found a steak for my left eye I realized that my motion simulator kit had arrived!

I ran the thing downstairs... ok, so I called a friend over and we wrestled the box down the stairs... and started assembly. However, life gets busy around here and I didn't get the thing put together until after the weekend. Ah well...

The RocknRide motion simulator does indeed come in a kit form. Its a well organized box about 40" square which contains about eight smaller boxes, a large hollow plastic seat, and some very heavy pieces of nicely anodized and painted steel. My box also included a mini air compressor for a paint gun (up to 40 psi). The chair has evolved again in the past year and is a very nice kit that anyone could assemble in a couple of hours.

One might wonder what keeps the monitor in place! There is plenty of sticky backed velcro supplied, and also a very strong nylon strap.... However, in spite of the noted limitation of a seventeen inch monitor, unless you happen to weigh about 200 pounds or more, you will find that a fifteen is the limit. Simply put, in order to balance the chair out a seventeen has to be placed closer to the center of gravity (ie. YOU). I weight 150 soaking wet and had my seventeen inch monitor about twelve inches from my face. This means sliding under the monitor to exit the chair... =)

So I borrowed a fifteen for tests. This allowed me to put the hardware at a more comfortable viewing distance. Really, its all you need anyway!

Assembly warning: don't wear an expensive sweater. There was a niggling bit of not quite smooth steel that caught my sweater twice and did some damage. And when the velcro is hanging off the monitor (oh, I was supposed to clip those lengthy ends??) I almost got permanently glued to the unit. I called my wife down and she brandished those sewing scissors like an English broadsword and had me free in no time! Geez, this velcro is amazing stuff!

I puzzled for a bit at how I was going to keep my PC close enough to this moving object while attached to an elevating monitor that it wouldn't... a. get hit, b. have the cords ripped out the back... Actually, it wasn't a problem. Since the chair doesn't rotate and the unit itself is stationary you can cuddle your PC up beside it and everything is cool.

Click to continue

OK, enough fun putting it together, I decided I might as well try it out! Turns out I got the five tubes in the right place the first time around (thanks John!) so I switched on the power on both sides of the room (I have a small office ok?) got my PC running on one side and the compressor and control panel on the other, and away we went! Right? We went, didn't we??

Well, no, there was a glitch. For some reason my joystick wasn't reading. The problem is either related to the passthrough on the control panel or to DX5, which doesnt' really seem to like joysticks very much. Easy fix. I recalibrated in the TM Control Panel and away we went.

Its hard to describe the feeling you get the first time you take a familiar simulation and add real life motion... Longbow 2 was VERY cool this way. F22: ADF was nice, but somehow the chopper sim was the perfect match. I tried Flying Corps and FA18 Korea also just for good measure.

Pushing forward on the joystick sends my Fokker DRVII into a steep dive, and the entire chair leans forward up to 60 degrees. Calling for a quick roll to the left also gives up to 60 degrees of camber. Its almost eery watching the scenery on the screen tilt as your entire body tilts! One limitation is that when you do a complete roll, the chair doesn't follow.. it just keeps leaning heavily in the direction you started out... =) Hey, this $700 unit would be more like $2000 if it went that far!

Anyway, like I said, its very cool anyway. Noise is not really an issue. The compressor is fairly quiet and with my stereo at medium volume all I could hear was a soft click from the switches whenever I tilted my stick another direction.

By the way, there is a hole on the bottom of the pvc chair for a subwoofer. Just so happened that I have a Radio Shack nearby so I took the measures for screws and installed one... VERY COOL. When the AB kicks in in F18 Korea or you take a hit you really know it. This should be standard issue for every sim fan. With this body hugging chair design the physical sensation is quite amazing!

So what are the limits of this hardware, other than the roll thing?

At the moment, there is no place for a throttle. Mounts are in the works already and should be out VERY soon now. Obviously, no Longbow fan in his right mind would try to fly without one, so I had mine on my lap. A compromise for now...

Go to Page Two