Building an F/A-18 Hornet Cockpit (DCS World)

Translating a virtual aircraft into a physical home simulator requires understanding how the real machine is operated. In the consumer flight simulation space, one of the most fully realized carrier-capable multirole fighters is the Eagle Dynamics F/A-18C Hornet within DCS World. A pilot who already flies this module virtually knows that the cockpit environment is entirely different from a commercial airliner. It is a compact, glass-driven combat office built around a center stick, a twin throttle, and a small bank of multifunction displays.

This guide walks through the Hornet cockpit zone by zone, explaining what makes the layout distinct and how each physical area translates to hardware at home, building a logical path from a simple desk setup to a dedicated frame. The high-fidelity hardware involved is PC-only.

What Makes the Hornet Cockpit Different from an Airliner

The F/A-18C is a single-seat, twin-engine, fly-by-wire multirole fighter designed for carrier operations. Because there is no copilot, the single occupant must manage flying, navigation, sensor operation, and weapons employment at the same time.

To make this workable, the cockpit relies on two core design ideas. First, the aircraft is flown one-handed with a center-mounted control stick, while the left hand stays mostly on the throttle. Second, the traditional rows of round analog dials are replaced by a glass office of reconfigurable digital screens. Everything is built around the HOTAS principle: Hands On Throttle And Stick. This is the combat-jet counterpart to a heavy airliner build, prioritizing dense, multi-layered grip controls over wide autopilot glareshields and overhead panels.

The Flying Controls

The Center Stick

Pitch and roll inputs are commanded through a center-mounted, military-style flightstick positioned between the pilot's knees. Unlike older hydraulic aircraft or airliners with mechanically linked controls, the Hornet is fly-by-wire: the stick does not move the control surfaces directly. Instead, it sends electrical signals to flight-control computers, which then fly the jet through their control laws.

Because it is fly-by-wire, the stick moves against a spring-based artificial-feel system while sensors read its position, and the centering force is fixed: it does not build with airspeed the way a conventional airliner's elevator-feel column does. To put that kind of grip between the pilot's knees, a home build uses a center-mount flightstick with military ergonomics such as the MOZA MH16. Mounted on a force feedback flightstick base such as the MOZA AB9, with 12 Nm of peak torque, it holds the firm, fixed centering force the real jet has, and its force feedback adds the live stick forces and buffet that are authentic in the helicopters and older mechanically-linked aircraft the same base can fly.

The HOTAS Throttle

Power for the twin engines comes from a pair of side-by-side throttle levers. The left hand lives here, so the grips become a dense cluster of combat, sensor, and comms controls, with the speedbrake switch, radar elevation, and the target-designator control under the fingers. The levers run through gated positions, from a cutoff stop at the aft end to a firm afterburner detent at the front.

Replicating this side of the cockpit calls for a fighter-style throttle dense with programmable switches and built around an adjustable detent, the formula behind the MOZA MTP. Grip fidelity matters as much as smooth travel, because a throttle short on physical switches forces the pilot back to the keyboard.

The Rudder Pedals

Rudder pedals provide yaw control in the air, nosewheel steering on the ground, and independent left and right toe brakes. Nosewheel steering offers a low gain for taxiing and a high gain for tight lineup near the catapult.

Carrier work still rewards precise pedals: nosewheel steering lines the jet up on the catapult, crosswind landings ashore lean on accurate yaw, and short-throw or overly stiff pedals quickly become a limitation. A set with long, smooth travel and independent toe brakes, like the MOZA MRP with its 150 mm of rudder travel and interchangeable centering springs, gives the fine control that deck work rewards.

Why HOTAS Puts So Many Buttons Under Your Fingers

In a combat aircraft, a pilot cannot take a hand off the controls during a radar lock, a missile shot, or a defensive break, so every time-critical function lives directly on the stick and throttle grips. Radar modes, sensor slewing, weapon selection, countermeasure release, communications, and trim are all worked through switches and hats while the eyes stay outside the canopy or on the HUD. For a home setup this fixes the hardware priority: the stick and throttle pair is the single most important purchase for a Hornet build, and a grip lacking the correct hats, castle switches, and triggers quietly pushes the workflow back onto the keyboard.

The Front Instrument Panel: The Hornet's Glass Office

A modern airliner splits its displays into dedicated roles, separating primary flight displays, navigation displays, and engine pages. The Hornet replaces that with multifunction screens. The same display might show a radar sweep one moment, a stores-management page the next, and a moving map a minute later, depending entirely on what the pilot calls up.

The Digital Display Indicators (DDIs)

On the left and right of the main panel sit the two Digital Display Indicators. In the real F/A-18C these are square multifunction screens ringed by a frame of twenty pushbuttons whose function changes with the active page. The pilot uses the DDIs for radar, targeting-pod imagery, engine and system pages, and weapon configuration. In the real jet these functions are spread across the panel; a Hornet-style front-panel system (the MOZA FMP18) gathers the two square bezel displays, the color center screen, and the up-front keypad into one set of magnetic quick-swap modules. Configured through MOZA's flight software, its bezel buttons move page changes off the mouse and onto physical keys.

The Advanced Multipurpose Color Display (AMPCD)

Low in the center of the instrument panel is the AMPCD, a full-color screen. It works like the DDIs but is most often used for the tactical moving map and situational-awareness pages, keeping navigational data visible just below the primary cluster.

The Up-Front Controller (UFC)

Directly below the HUD sits the Up-Front Controller. This keypad is the primary data-entry hub for radios, autopilot modes, navigation beacons, and the datalink. It is where most of the pilot's typing happens in a mission, and reaching for a mouse to click a tiny virtual keypad is notoriously awkward in flight. A physical keypad high on the center console restores the natural ergonomics of punching in coordinates while keeping an eye on the horizon.

The Head-Up Display (HUD)

The HUD projects flight data, steering cues, and targeting information onto a transparent combiner glass directly in the pilot's line of sight. While a HUD is a secondary reference in much of commercial aviation, the Hornet's HUD is the primary flight instrument. Most home builds render it virtually on the main monitor or inside a headset rather than attempting a physical projection system.

The Landing and Gear Controls

The controls for takeoff and landing sit around the lower instrument panel rather than on the grips. The landing-gear handle, the flap switch, the launch-bar switch, and the parking brake are grouped on the lower left, while the arresting-hook handle sits on the right side of the panel.

These are not HOTAS controls; they are thrown by hand during specific, high-stakes phases: the gear comes up just after clearing the deck, the hook drops while inbound to the carrier, and the launch bar is set before a catapult shot, then retracts on its own at the end of the stroke. Setting up for a night recovery in bad weather leaves no time to hunt for a mouse to configure the gear, flaps, and hook. A dedicated landing panel that gathers these controls into one cluster, such as the MOZA MTLP, a 25-switch panel modeled on the Hornet's own, with an authentic parking-brake lever, gives those functions the tactile certainty the moment demands.

How Carrier Operations Shape the Build

The Hornet exists because of the aircraft carrier, and the hardware needed to fly it well reflects that. A full carrier circuit runs through three phases that each test a different part of the simulator setup:

• The catapult shot: the pilot drops the launch bar, runs the engines up to full power while held by the holdback fitting, wipes out the flight controls, salutes the shooter, and braces the right hand on a canopy handhold before the shot. As the shuttle fires, the jet reaches flying speed in a couple of seconds and the fly-by-wire system flies it off the deck while the left hand stays on the throttle.

• Approaching the carrier: recovery is flown on the optical landing system at a precise, on-speed angle of attack, with glideslope held by small throttle adjustments and lineup by small lateral stick inputs. This is exactly why fine throttle resolution and smooth, accurate controls matter more here than for a high-altitude cruiser.

• The arrested landing: at touchdown the pilot pushes the throttles up to military power, ready to fly away from a bolter, then pulls to idle once a cross-deck pendant stops the jet.

Every phase maps onto specific hardware: high-resolution throttle axes, precise rudder pedals, a physical landing panel, and ingrained HOTAS muscle memory.

A Realistic Build Path

Building a complete F/A-18C cockpit does not have to happen at once. The Hornet rewards a layered approach because every zone has a distinct role.

Because MOZA runs its entire flight line through a single configuration app, MOZA Cockpit, the stick base, throttle, pedals, and panels added at different stages are tuned as one system rather than separate boxes. The display layer shapes the build too: DCS World leans hard on both processor and graphics card, so a strong PC matters. Virtual reality gives deep immersion and natural head movement around the HUD but hides the physical panels from view, which paradoxically makes tactile buttons more valuable. A multi-monitor setup with head tracking is a strong middle ground, keeping the DDIs and bezel buttons in sight while still giving a wide field of view.

Conclusion: Replicating the Workflow

Building the cockpit the way the jet is flown puts function ahead of pure appearance. Securing the stick and throttle first establishes the fundamental control inputs for maneuvering. Adding the glass office next brings tactical systems management into the physical realm, and finishing with the carrier-specific control panels completes the naval-aviation picture. Approached methodically, every piece of hardware earns a distinct purpose, and the Hornet build steadily turns a standard desk into a fighter cockpit where reaching for the hook handle or trimming through a hat switch becomes muscle memory rather than a hunt for the mouse.