K3A

I am a big fan of X-Plane simulator so I am trying to improve it over time for better experience. I added orthophotomaps to it which increased realism and detail.

After some time, I got an idea to control pilot’s head by using iPhone gyro. Head movement is useful mainly for navigation training. You would put the iPhone on your head and it would read gyro changes, send it via wifi to running X-Plane instance and move pilot’s head as you move yours. I tried to build the first prototype but then realized how bad iPhone gyro is. When I run the app for the first time without moving the device, the system started reporting error gyro data immediately. I did several corrections and filtering but still it was not usable for head tracking purposes.

I finally classified this as “bad” and was thinking about an optical solution. Then I came across TrackIR but I did not want to wait for it to be imported to my country so I decided to make something similar on my own (hardware, x-plane plugin and software). And after 3 days I had the first working prototype. :) Photos soon.