One Rig, Two Worlds: Inside Our Hybrid Racing and Flight Simulator
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Time to read 3 min
Most people think you have to choose. Race or fly. One seat, one discipline, one set of controls bolted exactly where they belong. We did not want to choose, so we built a rig that does not make you.
The VPS Hybrid Simulator System is a full-motion racing simulator and a force-feedback flight simulator sharing one chassis, one seat, and one set of screens. It is not a compromise between the two. It is both, at full strength, with nothing unbolted, swapped or clamped on when you switch.
The trick is not the gear. It is where the gear lives.
Every hybrid build we had seen before this one asked for a trade. Quick-release the wheel to clamp on a yoke. Slide the pedal deck out to make room for rudder pedals. Put the flight stick somewhere it does not belong because the racing hardware already owns the good real estate. Every switch costs you ten minutes and a little bit of the experience.
We went the other way. The racing gear is mounted exactly where a dedicated race rig would put it. Direct-drive wheelbase up front at proper height and angle. Hydraulic pedals on a stiff plate at correct pedal-box distance. Shifter to the right, where your hand already falls. Sit down in racing position and you would never guess this machine does anything else.
Then, further back along the aluminum profile, we mount the entire flight deck on its own real estate: force-feedback stick, throttle quadrant, and control panels, all set at flight ergonomics rather than squeezed into leftover space.
Slide the seat back. That is the whole switch.
Because the two control sets live at different points along the rails, the seat becomes the switch. Racing position puts you forward, wheel in your lap, heels on the pedal deck, harness tight. Slide the seat back along its rails and the flight controls arrive exactly where your hands want them, the stick at your right, the throttle quadrant at your left, the wheel and pedals now comfortably out ahead of you.
No tools. No unbolting. No re-clamping and no recalibration. You go from a GT car at Road Atlanta to a short final on approach in the time it takes to slide a seat and load a different title.
The articulating throttle door
The throttle quadrant was the hard part. A quadrant wants to sit at your left hand at flight distance, and that is exactly the space your leg travels through when you are climbing into or out of a racing seat. Fixed-mount it and you are stepping over it every single time. Leave it off the rig and you are back to a desk clamp and a compromise.
So we built it into an articulating door. The quadrant and its panel mount to a hinged arm off the side of the chassis. In flight position it swings in and locks where a real cockpit would put it, solid enough to pull against with no flex and no wander. When you are racing, or just getting in and out, it swings clear of the seat entirely.
It is the single detail people notice first when they walk up to this rig, and it is the one that makes the whole hybrid idea work in practice instead of just on paper.
Real motion under both disciplines
The chassis sits on a four-actuator 3DOF motion platform, and that motion pays off twice. On track it is brake dive, curb strike, and the moment the rear steps out. In the air it is turbulence, the settle of the gear touching down, and the pitch change when you pull power. Same hardware, two completely different vocabularies, both felt through the seat instead of read off a screen.
What is bolted to it
- Sim-Lab P1X Pro Tony Kanaan Edition chassis with Vero Motion Champion GT 3DOF motion
- Simagic Alpha EVO Pro 18 Nm direct drive, two race wheels, and P2000 hydraulic pedals
- MOZA AB9 force-feedback flight base with MH16 stick and throttle quadrant
- BDH H1SQ H-pattern and sequential shifter in one unit
- Ikon reclining seat, Sabelt harness, triple 32 inch screens and a dedicated simulator PC
Come sit in it
Photos only get you so far with a rig like this. The hybrid is on the floor at our Daytona Beach showroom at 933 Beville Rd, Suite 102E, and seat time is free. No appointment, no charge. Come drive it, then slide the seat back and go fly it, and see for yourself whether one machine can really do both.
Questions about a build of your own? Call or text us at (954) 296-6197, or take a look at the VPS Hybrid Simulator System.
