Le TQ est Arrivé

Finally, here it is! Arrived Monday. And what a beauty. The build quality is superb, the thing looks stunning and feels solid - no photo can do the experience justice:

Some comments:

• The packaging was adequate to get the thing here without any breakage - well done there (although it came in a cardboard box, not the wooden crate they talk about on the website...)
• Have a shop vac handy though - they used a low cost expanded polystyrene material that disintegrates as soon as you touch it. The bits go everywhere. Fortunately the TQ was packed in a bin bag (trash can liner for you Americans) and kept the debris away from the moving parts. I vacuumed it down before opening it up
• The TQ doesn't fit the center console. I'll need to either build a new one or put some new sides on the TQ. Either I got the angle wrong on the console or RS did...


• With time free Friday night, I started to set it up. Downloaded the SIOC software and followed these instructions. Seems like I need a personalized script which did not ship with the TQ. Read elsewhere on the RS website that I should have a Skype session with the RS team to fine tune the settings. I know they don't work weekends, will need to get it going next week
• The SIOC software reported one of the device IDs as being "*". Tried putting this in the .ini file, SIOC then tells me it's not an integer and just clams up
• There are 2 install guides on the RS website. One is for Project Magenta, the other is for PMDG. Best I can tell, they are identical and both refer to PMDG. No use to me since I'm running Project Magenta...

That's a bother - no chance of getting it going this weekend. Rats.

Also in my shipment, the rudder pedal kit. Looks good except for the painted panels. I think they were put in the aforementioned bin bags while the paint was still wet:

In the second photo you can see where the ink from the bin bag transferred itself over to the wet paint. You can also see where some of the paint simply flaked off. An email to Eren and he informs that a fresh set of panels is on the way. Doubt I'll have it by Christmas...


My tale of shipping delays hit a chord with one of my readers - received an email from Raik saying that his experience is very similar. Still no sign of his TQ and his emails to RS are going unanswered. Was supposed to ship in November...


Over the weekend I'll get the pedals hooked up. Will let you know how that goes.


But hey! There's more! Amazon has started shipping the parts for my new sim computer. The chassis, power supply, disk drives, CPU and display card have arrived. Motherboard is on route - just waiting on the memory to get the whole thing rocking and rolling.