Why I built it
I needed muscle memory, not another panel app
In April 2026, I took my checkride at Saijia, a small airfield in southern Taiwan. Steep turns, slow flight, stalls, a touch-and-go, a full-stop landing in a Sling. The examiner gave me 98 out of 100, and I walked away with my Taiwan ultralight pilot certificate.
It was a great day. But I knew it was only the beginning. My real goal is to earn an FAA Private Pilot License in the United States in the future, and then an Instrument Rating.
The US is far away, and real flight hours are expensive. So Microsoft Flight Simulator became my daily training ground. Different airports, different weather, real air traffic controllers, one flight after another.
The more I practiced, the more one thing bothered me. In the simulator, you click the buttons with a mouse. In a real cockpit, there is no mouse. Your hand has to know where the heading knob is and where the altitude knob is, while your eyes stay outside.
What I needed was muscle memory. I looked for a tool that could give me that at a reasonable price, and I couldn't find one.
So I built it.
Max Flight Deck puts your cockpit screens on an iPad or Android tablet, with the buttons and knobs where they sit on the real instrument. The spot your hand reaches for at home is the spot it will reach for in a real airplane.
Then I added the two things I needed most.
The first is ATC recording. Every conversation with the controller is recorded, and after the flight it turns into a written log. Every wrong readback and every hesitation is there in black and white.
The second is a flight record. Every takeoff, approach and touchdown is logged, so after each flight I can sit down with AI and debrief: was my descent rate too high, did I float too long in the flare, what can I do better next time.
I built this tool for myself first. When I finally sit in a cockpit in America, I want these avionics to feel like old friends.
If you're like me, using a flight simulator to quietly prepare for the day you fly for real, I hope Max Flight Deck can come along for the ride.
And I keep adding small tools, one at a time, so that anyone serious about real flying gets a little more feedback from every simulator flight. More to come.
— Max