Airplane/Helicopter Switching ideas

[HarvesteR]

Hello everyone,

with my upcoming purchase of an X52 Hotas joystick getting ever nearer, a whole bunch of ideas of interesting things to do with it came along...

i want to use the X52 to control both planes and helicopters, so i thought about it and came to the very simplistic conclusion that apart from yokes, all that separates heli controls from fixed wing controls is the throttle unit

bear in mind, i mean aircraft with sticks and left-hand throttles here... i leave my throttle quadrant and yoke to some other time in the future, keep in mind also that i will buy rudder pedals along with the x52

so, i had these ideas of creating a console that would sit to my left, and where i would mount my throttle unit on... this console would have a moving platform of some sort that will be able to pivot in a way that my throttle unit would hang vertically, facing down... i then would proceed to invert the throttle axis for helicopters and effectively make a collective lever out of the throttle

many designs came to mind, these three being the most promising:



(excuse my hasty MSPaint drawings)

Idea 1 would be a big, complicated system where the throttle unit would be attached to a pivoting base, held over the console by wheels on the side that would slide across rails mounted on the top of the console, for fixed wing position, the unit would be placed all the way forward and would rest horizontally on top of the console... for heli configuration, the unit would be slid all the way back, and then pivoted upward to be used as a collective lever, the upside if this one is that the base of this big console can also be used as a CD Case or something... also, i could later add some switches and buttons to that diagonal segment...

Idea 2 is a far more simple approach, where instead of having the unit slide across the console, it would just slide onto the end of the platform, where it would tilt down into collective lever position... then i would just simply pull the whole thing back to my side as the throttle would be too far forward to reach... might scrape the floor a bit i think

the third idea is the simplest to build, but may be kinda flimsy... the idea here is to not slide anything at all, and just pivot the platform arm up and down...
i'm also thinking about installing an arm rest so i don't have to support my hand on the throttle... i might gain some precision if my arm is relaxed... but i still don't know the best way of doing this

and i still have to find a way to lock the sliding/pivoting base onto the console... i have thought of many possible solutions but none that really solved the problem

another point to consider is that i'm not going to use this for FS exclusively, i also play other games where you can hop out of your plane and into a chopper, so this thing has to be able to change positions quickly, so complicated lock systems are mostly a bad idea

i'm leaning towards idea 1, because of the possibilities of adding more stuff to that console later, but i fear it might be a bit too complicated to build and maintain (has to be sturdy enough to withstand a few years of abuse)... on the other hand, i like having a complicated project to work on

anyways, i'm open to any suggestions to improve these ideas or even completely new designs

let me know what you think

Cheers

HarvesteR