A bit about how it works . . .
There are several components to the project. Broadly these can be broken down in several ways. One way is by parts in the cockpit: Glareshield, MIP, Pedestal and Overhead panels. Another way to look at it is in terms of input/output. This involves connecting various switches and controls to the system, as well as getting information back out - on monitors, 7-segment displays or whatever. I've looked at all aspects of the system. Let me explain a bit more about what I am doing!
A320 Cockpit
This is what the real thing looks like. Mine won't look like this, I suspect. I am working with Flight Simulator 2004 aka FS9. The Airbus I am using at the moment is the Wilco Airbus Series One. Why Airbus? Well, several reasons - Boeing cockpits are two-a-penny! And they are awesome! I've flown in two of them, but I wanted to do something different. Second, the Airbus philosophy means that you can easily fly a range of aircraft from one cockpit. The A318 up to the A330 share an almost identical cockpit configuration so very little needs to be changed to have everything from shorthaul to transatlantic capability. One other reason was that the Airbus was the first payware aircraft I had contact with. And (too many reasons??) the Wilco lends itself very well to this type of project.
So as we go along, I will discuss each part of the project. I am waiting for a new computer to run this project. That will have a vastly upgraded graphics card to run this. Then we need two 17" widescreen monitors, one 19" monitor, two screeens for the FMC, a couple of humongous monitors for the main view, a lot of MDF, a variety of switches and knobs etc.
This part is important: Inputs
I am not a technical genius. Not a genius of any kind! So how would all this be possible? A combination of two technologies: mousetrapping and BU0836X. There is a product called FSUIPC which you will need for many different reasons. The latest update from Pete Dowson (the creator) includes this 'mousetrapping' technique. What it allows you to do is to trap anything you can control with a mouse in your cockpit. FS allows you to control various things in your aircraft but there are many things you cannot assign a key to. A simple example is the APU. Every aircraft has one; FS provides no means to control it! In the Airbus you click on a button on the overhead to start the APU. The mousetrapping thing allows you to trap that mouseclick and assign it a name. You can then assign that 'control' to any key or joystick button. Joystick button? Enter the BU0836X card. This rather amazing (to me anyway) card is a joystick emulator. Basically it allows you to connect a toggle switch, rotary, encoder - whatever hardware switch you like - and the computer will see it as a joystick button. Then you can assign the trapped APU control to the switch you connected and voila! The APU starts on demand, without using a mouse! And it REALLY is that easy! You can see a video of this in action here. This whole process is critical to my concept.
Monitors:
So this is what I'm looking at in terms of the monitor setup. The theory is that the new computer will have a nice big graphics card, probably an Nvidia 9500. This card has two outputs and a TV-out. What I intend to do is connect one monitor out to a Matrox Triplehead 2 Go [TH2Go]. Then I will connect three outputs to that. The first will go to the actual external view - what we see out the window. I think the simplest way for me at this stage is to mirror the one view to a second monitor for the First Officer side. It's not as realistic but it's easy to do on my budget and I've seen it in action - it works reasonably well.
The next output from the TH2Go will be sent to the Primary Flight Display/Nav Display screens on 17" widescreen monitors. Again this will be split, showing the same view on both the Captain and First Officer side. With the Wilco Airbus it is possible (and very easy) to undock the all the displays and move them to other monitors. The only detail here is that in real life, the PFD and ND are on opposite sides, depending on which side of the aircaft you are sitting on ie. the PFD is nearest the outside, with the Navi display on the inside. Using a splitter will not replicate that. I don't care!
The third output goes to the ECAM display on a 19" monitor. There will be two screens from the simulator on that - the Engine/Warning display (E/WD) and the Systems Display. In addition, there will be the chronometer (or 'clock' as it's also known 
) and some standby instruments.
The TV out goes to the Flight Management Computers, known by many names - FMGS, FMC, CDU and MCDU. For this purpose I intend to use a pair of 7" touchscreens. There are several solutions to this problem - most of them are prohibitively expensive. I looked at a number of solutions - once I considered was using a series of buttons connected to BU0836X cards. It would take three cards at £50 each, plus all the buttons (70 in all) etc....the touchscreen is cheaper than the cards alone! And much easier.
Flight Controls
Airbus aircraft don't use yokes like other aircraft (Boeing 
) - they use sidesticks or joysticks as they are also known. I've decided to go with the Logitech Attack 3 for mine. 
First off, it's ambidextrous. The captain has to fly from the captain's seat and this means he has to control the aircraft with his left hand! I've been practicing that, and it's pretty easy to do now. Secondly, it looks a tiny bit like the Airbus one. On the downside, it has no hat switch or a rudder twist control. So I will need pedals. These will probably be Saitek ones, as I am also using Saitek throttle quadrants. As you will see in my Photo page, I've got a pair together at the moment. It's a bit unnecessary as the only four engined Airbus is the A340. But the bridged handle across the four levers makes a very nice resistance and feels good under the hand! The other two levers are spoilers (red) and flaps (blue). I'm working on a device to add a detent to these like real levers. It's still on the drawing board!
Sound
Now this is an interesting area. The plan here is to have two sound cards in the computer. One will run all FS sounds, and be connected to some nice external speakers. The second will run only Squawkbox and Teamspeak (my company channel). The second card will be connected to headsets for both pilots. I've opted for monaural (only one earphone) sets from Plantronics. Gave this one a lot of thought but in the end I decided on this for two reasons - a) it's more authentic; b) both pilots can speak to each other without having to remove an earphone. Having said that I'm looking at an interesting thread on Mycockpit.org regarding active headsets. This is where the voice of Pilot A is heard in the earphones of Pilot B. If I can crack that setup then I will change out the headsets for the very sexy Saitek ones now available. It's not a priority though.