Hello all,
I've been looking for a solution to use in a flight simulation project I am working on. I am building a cockpit and want to interface it with the simulation software.
I realize Arduino can handle the switches/buttons/etc. that I'll use, but what I do not understand is how I would be able to connect as many controls as I'll need. The cockpit will have 100+ inputs, so how would I connect that many to the an Arduino card?
Thanks! 
Lots of shift registers and analog multiplexors?
Actually - you might be better off designing a custom "standalone" arduino-controlled board with several addressable SPI/I2C-based shift-registers and ADCs...
Or - go with an Arduino Mega...
Another solution to throw in the mix (though not a complete solution, I don't think - I think its for digital i/o only) would be a Centipede shield...
Thanks for the reply cr0sh! My electronics skills/knowledge are extremely basic, so I am hoping to find a solution that will require as little set up as possible. Although I hope this will be a project that will enable me to learn more about electronics.
At this point though, I need a solution that will let me wire up my controls, connect them to the board, and then program as needed.
Arduino may not be the best fit, but I wanted to get some more information on it to help me decide. A good majority of the controls in my project will just be sending a keystroke to the computer, but some (eventually) may be more involved and I may have some output (lights, LCD's).
I have a couple boards now (one from Leo Bodnar and one from Xkeys), but with both of these, I believe I would need more than one to accomodate all the controls I'll have. Hoping to find a more contained solution.
Like most things, the answer is "depends." The Arduino (and ATMega it is based on) has a limited number of I/O. The good news is that it is relatively easy to expand this number, but at a cost. You can't address 100 bits of I/O as fast as you can address 1. Fortunately, Microcontrollers are much faster than humans are so in some applications this does not matter.
A better approach would be, design your cockpit and controls first. Don't design the controls around an Arduino. You aren't building an Arduino-based Flight Simulator. You are building a Flight Simulator which is controlled by a microprocessor. (Follow the difference?)
Now if after you have clearly defined what all of the controls look like, the data they require, and the data they produce then you can evaluate if the Arduino is a viable choice. You might even at that point go through another iteration to see "how could I use the Arduino."
That makes sense James, thanks! I hope to start building soon and getting all the controls installed. I'll check back once I am done with that phase of it. 
I've had a few customers tell me they're building flight sim setups with the Centipede Shield. The appeal there is mainly that the pins can be inputs or outputs, so you can read switches and trigger indicators etc. The other cool part is the Mux Shield doesn't conflict with the Centipede Shield pins, so you can have both!