Roadmap
What is being built, what is being considered, and what you can influence.
Development programme
Coldstart Cockpits is developing physical cockpit panels for DCS World and home flight simulators. Nothing on this page is available to buy yet. These are the panels being prototyped, engineered and considered across the F-16C Viper, F/A-18C Hornet and A-10C II Thunderbolt.
We would rather build the panels people actually want to use. Rank up to three in the order that matters to you. If only one of them interests you, say so and leave it there: that is more useful to us than a padded list.
Status key
Airframe 01
The F-16C is where Coldstart Cockpits starts. After years of flying the Viper in DCS, these are the controls that gain the most from being real hardware instead of a cursor and a click.
F-16C
The ICP is the main data entry point in the Viper, used constantly for steerpoints, radios, laser codes and system settings. Flying with it means looking down and clicking one key at a time, which is exactly the interaction physical hardware exists to fix. A real F-16C ICP puts the keypad under your hand and lets you set the aircraft up without dropping your eyes out of the HUD.
F-16C
The SNSR PWR panel sits on the right console and controls power to the hardpoints, the fire control radar and the radar altimeter. It is part of every start-up and every weapons check, tucked away where reaching it with a mouse means dragging the cursor off the instruments and losing your place. A physical F-16C SNSR PWR panel turns that into switches you can throw without looking.
F-16C
Interior lighting is what makes a night sortie in the Viper work, setting console, instrument and flood brightness alongside the malfunction and indicator lights test. It is also the panel that proves out our Type VII integrally illuminated construction, so this is the first piece of Coldstart F-16 cockpit hardware that exists as a working prototype rather than a drawing.
Airframe 02
The Hornet has one of the most recognisable cockpit layouts in DCS. These are the panels Coldstart Cockpits is looking at as the range moves beyond the F-16, starting with the controls touched on every sortie.
F/A-18C
The master arm panel sets the aircraft between safe and armed and selects the air to air and air to ground master modes. It is a control you reach for at the busiest moment of a flight, usually while holding a target and flying the aircraft at the same time. Having the F/A-18C master arm switch under a finger rather than under a cursor is worth more than almost any other switch in the Hornet.
F/A-18C
The UFC is the Hornet's central interface for communication, navigation, TACAN, ILS and weapon data entry. Almost everything in the DCS Hornet cockpit routes through it at some point, which makes it the panel that suffers most from mouse driven interaction. A physical Hornet UFC panel, with its keypad, option select buttons and scratchpad, turns data entry into something you can do without looking.
F/A-18C
The Hornet interior lighting panel handles console, instrument, flood and chart lighting along with warning and caution brightness. Like the Viper equivalent it is built as a Type VII integrally illuminated panel, with a dedicated LED board between the faceplate and the aluminium backplate and high frequency PWM dimming so it does not flicker on camera. Working prototype hardware exists.
Airframe 03
The A-10C II is one of the most systems heavy aircraft in DCS, which is exactly what makes physical cockpit controls worth having. These are the A-10C panels that take the most mouse work out of a sortie.
A-10C II
The A-10C UFC panel sits at the top of the centre console and drives the CDU, the radios and the aircraft's data entry functions. In DCS it is one of the panels people click most and look at least, because reaching it means dragging a cursor across the cockpit. Physical keys make the front console usable without breaking your view outside.
A-10C II
The CDU is the most distinctive and most heavily used system in the A-10C cockpit, carrying the full keyboard used for waypoints, flight plans and mission data. It is a two handed panel in the real aircraft and a slow one with a mouse. An A-10C CDU panel with real keys and line select buttons is the single biggest change you can make to how the Hog is operated at home.
A-10C II
The AHCP controls master arm, gun and laser arming, IFFCC power and the HUD mode, which makes it the panel that decides whether the aircraft can employ weapons at all. It is a compact block of toggle switches that suits physical hardware perfectly, and an AHCP panel for DCS removes a whole set of pre attack mouse clicks. Working prototype hardware exists.
Your priorities
If we could only build three panels next, which would you choose? Rank up to three. One is a perfectly good answer.
0 / 3 selected
Rank up to three panels above. One is a perfectly good answer.
Logged
Thanks. Your selections have been added to the Coldstart Cockpits roadmap and will help decide what gets built next.
R&D
The roadmap shows what we are working towards. The R&D blog shows how we are getting there.
