First, it is important to be aware of what are the goals regarding placement of the LCD screens. The most important goal is to provide the largest possible horizontal and vertical field of view. When a person is seated in the pilot’s seat inside the flight deck, their view of the outside is constrained by the windows in the flight deck. By using large LCD displays and placing them close to the flight deck, it is possible to provide a external world view that covers the majority what can been seen through the windows to outside the flight deck from the pilot’s eyepoint. In my simulator, I have strategically place black foam board adjacent to the LCD displays, so that it blocks any view of the simulator room. By doing this, the brain quickly disregards these areas. This is similar to how the display bezels disappear or, more commonly experienced, how the wire grid of a mesh screen disappears when looking through it at something beyond.
There is an issue of parallax that affects the goal of placing screens as close as possible to the flight deck. Parallax is reduced by increasing the distance of the LCD displays from the pilot’s eyepoint. See the article “Field of View & Parallax” that goes into more depth with a discussion on this complex topic.
This flight simulator is configured with three Samsung 65-inch LED 4K TVs, model RU7100. The displays are connected to the main “FltSim” computer via HDMI or Display Point interface cables. Having three monitors of the same make and model helps to minimize subtle variations in the different LCD displays. All monitors are configured to run in computer or game mode, which prevent the monitors from attempting to self-adjust brightness, contrast, or saturation.
Although each monitor can display 4K resolution, they are configured in Microsoft Windows to run at 1080p resolution. Each monitor then receives data for 1080p resolution, but then upscales the data, using proprietary algorithms and processing internal in each display, for output to the display’s physical 4K pixels. If interested, see the article “Is It Possible to Run Three Displays at 4K?”.
Each 65-inch display weighs approximately 38 pounds. In this simulator, the displays are mounted, using their 400 x 400 mm VESA wall mounts, to a custom-built support system. The support system emulates an internal wall structure and was constructed from 2 by 4 boards. The support system consists of three sections, one section for each display. The sections are connected with hinges, which allows the displays to be angled precisely. The angles for each of the side displays was calculated to maintain a constant distance for the pilot’s eyepoint to the center of each display. This allows for an accurate field of view on the display that would realistically emulate what a pilot would see from the flight deck. Here is a PDF file that provides the plans for constructing the support system.
The displays are located 55.7 inches from the pilot’s eyepoint when they seated inside the flight deck. The field of view from this distance is 54.4 degrees for the 57.3 inch wide Samsung LED TV. All three LED TVs provide a total field of view of 163 degrees horizontally, and 33 degrees vertically.
A fourth display monitor is also connected to the “FltSim” computer. This is a small 21 inch 1080p monitor that is located on a small desk outside the flight deck. This is used as a utility monitor for launching applications, initial software installation & configuration, as well as computer maintenance.
