Hiya!

I am in this hobby for a while now, I tried to built my own home cockpit when I was 13yrs old! Never finished it and it's now gone. I am now planning to build a cockpit or more or less a box for general tasks within all kind of aircrafts (From GA to Jet's). I would like to start off with making sliding throotles module with 3 handles (power, pitch, mixture). I am wondering in what way to approach it. My money is limited and I am looking to do it at a cheap price.

I am a good webdesigner and web codder but a crap programmer and anything like C+ or C is a black hole for me!

I need advice on what type of approach to go for. Keyboard emulator + joystick/gamepad boards or some kind of USB interface cards (if so then which ones). I know that a while ago there was quite a lot of USB joystick controller card's available like these: http://www.leobodnar.com/shop/index....roducts_id=204 but It seem's that their not available anymore.

Would Arduino boards work for me since they are cheap? How hard are they to program? I am planning on using rotary and linear pots, push buttons/micro switches and switches. Possibly encoders in the future.

Please consider that I am looking for an easy way to do stuff without need for much programming and have limited money.

Regards,
Maciej!