The idea for this project comes from a long-time passion I have for flight simulation software.
The most widely diffused Microsoft Flight Simulator X allows plyers all over the world to fly their personal airliner, by operating all of its systems.

However, in order to allow a full realistic experience, the simulator operates through a 3D point-and-click interface which is rendered quite painful to use on most systems, due mainly to screen size and mouse responsiveness, especially when pairing the simulator with face-tracking software, for better realistm.

This easily replicable piece of hardware consists of a Atmel micro controller which drives a 2x16 LCD display, a buzzer, one encoder and some buttons. The firmware allows the user, by means of a simple text-driven user interface, to visualize and set all the most common auto pilot parameters, such as Altitude, Speed, Engagement, Track, Heading, Direction, and so on.
Audible feedback is provided through a buzzer to indicate disengagement.

The firmware is written in C and communicates to the simulator through the Arduino′s built-in USB-to-serial interface.
A driver is requested to provide direct connection with FSX (check out the download section for all the goodies packed together!).
The driver, available onnly for windows, is developed in C# and makes use of the most common FSUIPC-FSConnect interface.
Data is continuosly sent to and from the device, which in turn can display current information, should any change be made through the usual on-screen interface.

Here is a video of the hardware in action!

Schematics:

The display is clearly not wired in the diagram. Simply wire it to some of the available digital pins and change the display initialization parameters in the firmware accordingly.

I know this page is not comprehensive enough. Should you have questions on anything, please don′t hesitate to drop me an E-mail ;-)