This is the big one—the Annual Flight Simulator Inspection. In this video, I walk you through the most comprehensive review of the entire flight simulator system, covering emergency systems, hardware durability, and future planning.
Think of this as your simulator's annual service. It goes far beyond monthly or quarterly checks, catching long-term wear and ensuring your sim is ready for another year of reliable operation.
**🔍 What's Covered in This Video:**
**1. Emergency Systems Audit**
- Testing emergency lighting and backup comms methods
- Reviewing emergency procedures for your sim area (fire, power outage, hardware failure)
- Verifying fire extinguisher status and emergency contact information
**2. Comprehensive Hardware Inspection**
- Inspecting USB hubs, power supplies, and all high-wear components
- Testing potentiometers, switches, and buttons on all peripherals
- Examining cables and connectors for damage or wear
**3. Acceptance Inspection (Conditional)**
- Full system testing after new major hardware or software upgrades
- Verifying integration between new and existing systems
- Creating and signing off on acceptance criteria
**4. Depreciation & Upgrade Planning**
- Determining your simulator's current value
- Identifying required upgrades for the next 12 months
- Planning and budgeting for future improvements
**📖 Full Written Guide (Pilot Savvy Wiki):**
https://pilotsavvy.com/KB/index.php/Annual_Flight_Sim_Inspection_Checklist
#FlightSimulator #AnnualInspection #SimulatorMaintenance #PilotSavvy #FlightSim #Aviation #HomeCockpit #TechTuesday #SimLife
Think of this as your simulator's annual service. It goes far beyond monthly or quarterly checks, catching long-term wear and ensuring your sim is ready for another year of reliable operation.
**🔍 What's Covered in This Video:**
**1. Emergency Systems Audit**
- Testing emergency lighting and backup comms methods
- Reviewing emergency procedures for your sim area (fire, power outage, hardware failure)
- Verifying fire extinguisher status and emergency contact information
**2. Comprehensive Hardware Inspection**
- Inspecting USB hubs, power supplies, and all high-wear components
- Testing potentiometers, switches, and buttons on all peripherals
- Examining cables and connectors for damage or wear
**3. Acceptance Inspection (Conditional)**
- Full system testing after new major hardware or software upgrades
- Verifying integration between new and existing systems
- Creating and signing off on acceptance criteria
**4. Depreciation & Upgrade Planning**
- Determining your simulator's current value
- Identifying required upgrades for the next 12 months
- Planning and budgeting for future improvements
**📖 Full Written Guide (Pilot Savvy Wiki):**
https://pilotsavvy.com/KB/index.php/Annual_Flight_Sim_Inspection_Checklist
#FlightSimulator #AnnualInspection #SimulatorMaintenance #PilotSavvy #FlightSim #Aviation #HomeCockpit #TechTuesday #SimLife
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LifestyleTranscript
00:01Hello and thank you for tuning in to Pilot Savvy Tech Tuesday video. In this
00:06episode we're going to discuss the annual inspection for your flight
00:09simulator. The annual inspection is a key inspection point because in
00:16addition to it building on the previous inspection
00:20starting with the daily and working its way through up into the annual. It
00:25allows you to take a look at your simulator and the condition of it and
00:29even if it's a main condition you want to look at the the life of the sim you
00:36know like how is it is it becoming obsolete is it you know do you want to
00:43consider upgrade any kind of upgrades to keep up with the flight sim technology
00:48that that's constantly evolving. My name is Chris let's get started okay so we have
01:02arrived at the last periodic or calendar inspection however you want to refer to
01:12it and we're at the annual flight sim inspection checklist it's the one that
01:19you know you're at the very end and you make a lot of assessments on this as to
01:23what you're going to do next with your flight sim let's go ahead and pull it up
01:28we're gonna do as usual grab your favorite browser and I'm going to pilot savvy go to
01:39knowledge base
01:44and go to flights flight sim inspections annual flight sim inspection checklist and
01:52it's going to pull it up and like the other ones you have the abbreviated checklist check the
02:01emergency systems this is a relatively simple flight sim so doesn't have any of that hooked up yet
02:10but I am going to have some lights and bells and whistles and where it's going to
02:15actually communicate both ways to right now it's just going to the sending a
02:20signal to explain and it doesn't have any feedback on the actual flight sim but
02:28that's going to change some comprehensive inspections test all items
02:37hardware items like USB and as you see if you follow me through this inspection
02:43journey you saw that that that's the case but pretty much every checklist that we
02:49have every inspection checklist we have it involves USB why because that's used in
02:56every single flight and you know you want to make sure they're working acceptance
03:03inspection uh septic inspection uh septic inspection then you um assess the appreciation this is where
03:11you determine you look back you've gone through day one and starting with the daily inspection
03:19and um seven days 14 28 etc all the way through to now so this this would be a year
03:27later and you're looking
03:29you're thinking okay um is my flight sim adequate and uh you determine you determine that and I'll go over
03:39that with you
03:40so let's go and uh look at performance uh testing okay we talked about that test emergency
03:48emergency so performance emergency systems um we're gonna uh test the emergency well you're gonna
03:57you want to verify that emergency lighting lights up etc battery power ups uh uninterrupted power supply
04:07is um connected and functioning correctly and typically the way you do that is you disconnect the power
04:14to the battery to the battery backup or the power supply and um then you test the backup lighting
04:26so I don't have as I mentioned I don't have any battery uh backup lighting
04:34yet then you have your um you want to ensure that emergency lights are clearly marked so we don't have
04:40that yet but it's going to be and this is like this will be for some of your more advanced
04:47flight centers
04:47enclosures so I don't have any closure yet and then the next step here I'll verify backup communications
04:58so if you use a headset like I did a video you may have seen it on uh using my
05:05pilot headset for my um
05:08communications and it started out working okay the adapter that I uh reviewed is it's working perfectly
05:17fine but I had an issue with the headset that I own some years uh earlier if you have anything
05:25like uh
05:26pilot edge anything this is where you want to test your communication and then we got your review
05:31emergency procedures walk through the emergency procedures for the same area fire etc again this
05:38is uh it won't hurt to do it at home so you know I see video videos where there are
05:43flight sims that
05:44take up a whole room that's great you know I would love to have one of those one day but
05:51you don't want
05:52to block out your interest as simple as it may seem you know something happens you know you're talking
05:57about a big piece of electronics you know you start getting smoke and arcing and sparking uh you're
06:03gonna need to evacuate just like in a real airplane so you want to make sure that you have a
06:07clear path
06:09um there's general fire rule you want to be able to get to the window to escape
06:17make sure the fire extinguisher is charged and accessible um you want to verify emergency
06:24contact numbers and uh keep in mind this pertains to not just home simulators then you have your
06:33documents um findings so what you do is uh as you're going down this checklist I have mentioned
06:39another um inspection checklist note in an emergency system deficiencies and create a plan to address
06:47issues wrong that holds true not with just emergencies but you want to you want to make a note as
06:52you're
06:53going down the checklist you don't want to get distracted by trying to fix these as you go
07:00make a note of them and uh move on so then then you have uh section two conduct uh conduct
07:09uh
07:09comprehensive uh hardware inspection so this is uh you know up until now you've done your share
07:18already up on inspect usb hubs this is no different check all power and uh unpowered you uh usb test
07:27each
07:28port on the hub with the known good device uh consider replacing hub you actually saw me replace some
07:39hub stuff one of if you saw my uh all of my videos and one of the things that i
07:45was surprised that i saw
07:46was recommended you know me i was like okay i'll use it until it don't work no more um i
07:52saw some
07:53recommendations that for you to consider replacing hubs that show sign of uh failure or or more than
08:01two to three years old well guess what that's all of my hubs so i'm not going to do that
08:08there's a lot
08:09of things here that's that made it to the checklist i'm not going to do but that is uh industry
08:17recommendation is to do that but i have just in time inventory and it's called amazon uh test power uh
08:25power supplies so here number two uh you want to verify that all power supplies pcs monitors are
08:34provided stable power okay so you listen for unusual noises and stuff you're probably seeing it like
08:41when something electrical is going out it's well the band on the computer and you know it's just a
08:48noise and that ain't supposed to be there you can uh test that i mean just look at that and
08:55you know
08:57rather than wait for it to go out you can go ahead and replace it and now you got yourself
09:01an emergency
09:02spare and that might be what i do with the uh usb hubs just start replacing with the ones that
09:09i have
09:09my eyes on and i have those as a uh backup and those are ones i have now are real
09:15sim gear ones and
09:16they've served me well they continue to and i have two of two 10 port hubs power hubs okay number
09:25three
09:25inspectors we inspect the potential armaments and uh sensors test all analog axes yokes and you've seen
09:33me do that on several of them as you're going through the process of of uh doing the different
09:39inspections 28 days seven day 28 etc um that's more of the same you're testing the um access to yoke
09:48water pedals throttles and back my very last one i think you saw me do that the uh 180 day
09:56inspection
09:58just going to um not going to go through uh that again because uh if you want to some information
10:06on how to do that just uh have several videos uh by now on how to go through and and
10:11and um get to
10:13where you go to check these um that'll just take up more of your time with me showing you here
10:20use calibration tools okay i don't have any calibration tools but i have uh seen them and
10:27use their electrical tools to me um for what i'm doing here is i don't know that it's necessary
10:35uh to do that it is uh it'll get down to the nitty-gritty you saw me in one of
10:41my videos
10:44um and let me show you some of this stuff
11:02i just clicked on it here um to get here here you go to uh uh cp uh what's that
11:09cp cpl i'm sorry joy dot cpl
11:15and then enter and that brings this up game controller and windows um whenever i'm adding something new to
11:42the computer uh to my flight sim i always start out with windows because if windows don't recognize
11:48it x-plane it's not going to recognize it
11:53so here we're going to go this is a real sim get throttle
11:59um let's just use that one because i was talking about real sim get stuff earlier
12:04here so i'm just going to go here and then i'm going to throttle up and it's starting out
12:12idle i don't use the mixture and the diamond but it's there still on the throttle
12:21and i'm throwing it back now so i keep that just idle that's the mixture control you do use it
12:28in the
12:28series apparently this is the uh real sim gear um throttle quadrant suppose i can go ahead and just
12:35bring this um x-plane up in case i need i have it here not going to go into the
12:40flight mode but what
12:41i'm going to do is just go pull up the settings go to this uh real sim gear here we
12:49go throttle quadrant
12:51and it's not going to move or anything you see it's doing more of the same thing over here in
12:56the
12:56upper right corners uh got more detailed stuff than on windows that's the mixture control up down
13:03if you ever have any problems with that you notice how the throttle up here
13:11okay so i could now look at how this is so throttle idle and that's showing reverse axis i'm going
13:17to
13:18go ahead and uncheck that and that's why i got one of the board this here and just make this
13:23here strictly
13:25academic and not uh not performing so i'm gonna go back to what was what we was at here i'll
13:34leave the
13:34real sim gear throttle up there and moving right along because uh consider cleaning um the potential armors
13:45with electrical contacts so one of my video shots i think i it captured a um
13:54some q-tips i'll um maybe include that in this in this as well um yeah there's some q-tips
14:03there that has
14:03a wooden uh they they're like long q-tips with a wooden hammer give you some um um leverage there
14:13so
14:13where you can kind of scrub things that are dirty yep no no switches they do get dirty so you
14:21want to clean
14:21them then you want to uh next up here number five test switches and buttons yep i mentioned that
14:29earlier i have a whole video on testing buttons and knobs and what they're talking about here is
14:36let's let's show you glad i had this up so everything i have is all the new ones are plugged
14:45into the bbi 64 so
14:49bbs 64 it's not going to show a picture of it but i'll put a picture i'll try to embed
14:55a picture
14:55in this video so i'm going to hit the engine start button and you see number 10 is lighting up
15:03i'm going
15:04hit the engine master switch and you see number 37 is lighting up okay number six inspect cables and
15:13connectors okay we went over that again uh already then next up you're going to have your check uh
15:20strain relief point oh yeah that was that's what that one video focused on i've had some wires pulled
15:27tight didn't realize it every time i swivel my computer around to check something i was putting
15:33strain on that um okay number seven document uh finally so i mentioned earlier uh when you find
15:39something going on this checklist you see how easy it is to get distracted even just talking and stopping
15:44to tell my story it um it's it takes and adds more time so you want to list all components
15:53repairs
15:53and prioritize issues um what's critical what's not and um just plan a replacement or repair
16:03so that you need some kind of uh ticketing system for your sim uh or logbook i mentioned in one
16:11of the
16:11videos i i one of the previous videos is that i initially bought a paperback aircraft logbook and i
16:23document i just hand wrote discrepancies that i found on the simulator and that's a good first start
16:30and there's some electronic options as well you can use a spreadsheet because you're not writing a
16:35paragraph on what you're finding a spreadsheet would actually suffice so what we got here we go three
16:42perform acceptance inspection that's conditional that falls under conditional inspection new system
16:49you perform a it's a conditional inspection and that's an excel or an acceptance inspection
16:57conditional inspection is it's anything that's out of the ordinary you don't buy a new sim or build a
17:03new sim daily so anything major that's changed a new simulator if you you know even if you go to
17:09a vendor
17:10uh somewhere like real sim gear say hey i want assessment sim uh send it to me create it up
17:15and send it to me
17:17you get it it's a good idea to do an acceptance inspection catalog everything i do a functional
17:23check when i'm installing uh these components but not a conditional not not an acceptance inspection
17:34i guess it should be because that's major you need yokes throttle throttle rudder pedals etc um
17:43full system test launch simulator and verify all new components recognize and function yep i take it
17:50around the block i take it around the traffic pattern or something new you don't have to go way out
17:55unless you're practicing like a uh testing out a navigation aid or something like that um
18:02um verify all displays visuals audio are correct so yeah you do want to check uh do a functional uh
18:11maintenance check
18:14verify any integrations uh test indications between the uh interactions between the new and existing
18:23components yep i did that um i had my stuff and then i had real sim gift stuff there um
18:30and i made sure that they
18:32can interact with one another and they did uh all plugins add-ons and third parties so um yeah initially
18:45load
18:45all that stuff up and then from there if you watch my other videos you know that i'm a if
18:51it ain't broke
18:52don't don't fix the kind of person so check for conflicts okay that's more of the same what we've discussed
19:00already uh complete uh acceptance criteria so create a checklist of uh and this you'll do for your own sim
19:14frame rate i went over the frame rate earlier
19:18let's go ahead and show you with that frame rate and i discussed in one of the other videos why
19:26this is
19:27important i use this um this data output frame rate so you saw what i did it went to settings
19:36and then um data output and then frame rate you click on this uh it shows in the cockpit i
19:46use this
19:46like an extended like an extended version of of um the instruments because it shows how the flight sim is
19:58performing outside of the aircraft itself this is more of that that feature
20:08that feature
20:09that feature is more of how the
20:12how x-plane
20:14is performing and with the computer how or how the computer is performing
20:19so a combination of those to say what's what's the energy level there was you know it said
20:25bogging down where that's going to be a problem if you're talking to lab etc
20:31so you document that and move on so we're on the last stretch here is assess depreciation
20:40this is the big one the value but uh assess depreciation
20:47value and upgrade and plan upgrades flight simming is expensive and that's one of the reasons we're
20:55doing these um you want to do a periodic inspection um throughout the year to keep it to maximize the
21:02resale value of it if you decide to sell what i've done to get to where i'm at now is
21:08over a period of
21:08years i started out with the mouse keyboard and then the joystick then rudder pedals and then i just
21:15started adding components uh and the uh panel and and got to where i'm at now but i did that
21:23by trading up
21:24so i would have something like a video card for instance existence before letting it become obsolete
21:31i kept good i took good care of it over the years and then i actually um was able to
21:38sell it on ebay
21:39for a good price um for that the value of that and then i bought another one off ebay so
21:47i upgraded it
21:48ebay and the most recent one of course i bought all those on new but should i decide i still
21:54have my
21:54latest old one i'm using in a another simulator that i'm going to be building that's for uh general uh
22:02aircraft not just a diamond this one here that i'm using now is a thoroughbred d850 sim so uh determine
22:11value google go to the internet go to the uh just uh reddit or wherever you uh look for information
22:19on
22:19what's happening in the tech world um see what the value of see if you know those cars the components
22:26you have in your and your flight sim and your computer see if they're becoming obsolete you don't
22:32want to sit on it until it's obsolete you want to um ideally pass it on to someone else who
22:37may have
22:38use for it and um before it becomes obsolete so that they can get some good play time out of
22:44it
22:45and so um that's what that's the importance of this research current market values for your simulator
22:52hardware and consider the age condition and um remaining useful life so it's better to better
23:02to trade it up before you uh get to that point document total estimate costs of the system and yeah
23:10i'll
23:11give you an example of this um i stretched the purchase of my latest update over a year it was
23:20actually
23:20more than a year i did research i saw what was coming there with all the ai stuff and i
23:26like okay i don't
23:27want all the ai stuff i know that there was some issues that i noted so decided not to go
23:35with the
23:36latest and the greatest and go with something that i know was proven before and still works and should
23:43that change and it hasn't yet um then i'll i'll i'll go from there so identify hardware components likely
23:52to require upgrade and within the next 12 months you see how this is planning 12 months you don't
23:58want to wait till that 12th month or that like almost like a 12th hour um or 11th hour and
24:05then try to
24:05trade it up if you know it might be obsolete next year this time might become an obsolete next year
24:12this
24:12time go ahead and trade it up now just uh start planning start planning for it should i say in
24:18some cases if you're able to um go ahead and trade it up now so that someone like someone can
24:23get it
24:24and enjoy it for at least a year a good year and uh that's how i started out a lot
24:30of my stuff just
24:32where it was you know it it benefited me and and the stuff i passed on benefit someone so someone
24:39passed
24:40on like the upgrade i got from ebay it wasn't brand new but it was in decent condition and it
24:47gave
24:48me a boost it doubled what i had before so plan and budget create a prioritized list of recommended
24:56upgrades uh estimated costs and create a budget for the year ahead plan plan for potential downtime
25:07that's important especially if you know you that you're um you know you're doing some recording
25:12like what i'm doing now you need your flight sim you want to plan for that document future plans uh
25:20set
25:21reminders for key purchase decisions or budgets if this information was useful for you and um go ahead
25:28and uh give a thumbs up leave a comment if you have anything you want to add or any comments
25:35on what i've
25:36uh add it and if you um want to be notified of any future videos i have i put them
25:44out weekly then go
25:46ahead and subscribe and my name is chris palisavi thank you for tuning in bye now
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