FlightSimBuilder · Comparison Guide
Turnkey flight simulators: what are you paying for?
Full G1000 simulators now range from about $15,000 to nearly $50,000. The difference isn't build quality — it's what happens when a sim racing company assembles a flight simulator out of other companies' parts and prices it like a high-end racing rig. We manufacture our avionics, our panels and our frame, so we can charge less for more. Below we spec our simulator up to match one of those $40,000-plus turnkey builds part for part, using its published component list and our own prices, and see what's left.
SPECS VERIFIED: SEPTEMBER 2026 · SOURCES: PUBLISHED MANUFACTURER PRODUCT PAGES
Lowest cost to a complete cockpit
FlightSimBuilder — from $15,200, PC included
Matched part for part
$21,000 vs $46,999.99 — same displays, same GPU
Their genuine hardware edge
Displays and GPU — worth about $7,000 of the gap
Let's level the playing field
Two line items on that build cost more than the ones in our standard build: the displays and the graphics card. So let's not argue about them — let's credit both in full, at retail, add that to our price, and compare what's left.
FlightSimBuilder G1000 Multi-Profile SimulatorPremium touchscreen kit — force feedback yoke, throttle, rudder pedals, full-size metal panel, glareshield, GA seat, aluminum frame, display stand, PC (Ryzen 9800 / RTX 5080), remote setup
$14,000
Three 55″ wrapped displaysMatching the display size those builds ship — about $2,000 per screen, wrapped around you. Available as an option on our simulator; the standard choice is ~$1,200 for three 27″ monitors or three 50″ TVs.
+ $6,000
Credit their RTX 5090 in fullThe retail difference over the RTX 5080 we ship — credited at full value even though the real-world gain in MSFS is marginal, since the sim is far more CPU-bound than GPU-bound at these settings.
+ $1,000
FlightSimBuilder, fully creditedSame screen size, their graphics card valued in full, nothing left out
$21,000
Typical sim-racing turnkey buildA currently-listed G1000 turnkey simulator, as priced today
$46,999.99
What you pay extraAfter crediting every hardware advantage they have
$25,999.99
So what does that extra $26,000 buy?
Not avionics you can switch — these builds are locked to the G1000, where the same panels on our rig become eight different avionics suites from a dropdown.
Not a touchscreen — the G3X Touch, G600TXi and GTN 750Xi are flown with fingers on glass in the real aircraft, and theirs can't accept touch at all.
Not force feedback — the VirtualFly Yoko is a good yoke, but it's a spring. Ours loads up with airspeed and trims like the airplane.
Not a better panel — ours is a full-size all-metal powder-coated panel with a thermo-formed glareshield; theirs is a third-party RealSimGear modular unit.
Not a better seat — ours is a GA-style aircraft seat on a purpose-built flight frame, not a flight mount added to a sim racing chassis.
It buys assembly, crating, a wind kit, 5.1 surround and a headset. Those have real value. They do not have $26,000 of value — and none of them add a capability the hardware doesn't already have.
Not avionics you can switch — these builds are locked to the G1000, where the same panels on our rig become eight different avionics suites from a dropdown.
Not a touchscreen — the G3X Touch, G600TXi and GTN 750Xi are flown with fingers on glass in the real aircraft, and theirs can't accept touch at all.
Not force feedback — the VirtualFly Yoko is a good yoke, but it's a spring. Ours loads up with airspeed and trims like the airplane.
Not a better panel — ours is a full-size all-metal powder-coated panel with a thermo-formed glareshield; theirs is a third-party RealSimGear modular unit.
Not a better seat — ours is a GA-style aircraft seat on a purpose-built flight frame, not a flight mount added to a sim racing chassis.
It buys assembly, crating, a wind kit, 5.1 surround and a headset. Those have real value. They do not have $26,000 of value — and none of them add a capability the hardware doesn't already have.
Display and GPU pricing is our own current cost to supply the equivalent parts, not an estimate of what any other builder pays or charges for them — those prices are not itemized publicly. We credit their hardware in full rather than guess at their breakdown.
Spec-by-spec comparison
FlightSimBuilder G1000 Multi-Profile Simulator Kit (Premium, touchscreen) against a currently-listed turnkey G1000 simulator built by a sim-racing manufacturer, as each is published today. We've left the competitor unnamed — the point is the category, not one company — but every figure below comes from a real, dated product listing we keep on file.
| Feature | G1000 Multi-Profile SimulatorFlightSimBuilder | Turnkey G1000 simSim-racing manufacturer |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $14,000 + ~$1,200 displays ≈ $15,200 Matched to their 55″ displays and RTX 5090: $21,000 −$3,500 without the PC |
$46,999.99 |
| Who makes the avionics | WE DO — FlightSimBuilder designs and manufactures the G1000 TNxi panels and writes the Hub software that drives them | THIRD PARTY — "RSG Cessna Modular Panel", a RealSimGear product resold as part of the build |
| Avionics profiles | 8 PROFILES — G1000 / G1000 NXi PFD & MFD, G3X Touch PFD & MFD, Steam Gauges ×2, G600TXi, TDS GTN 750Xi | G1000 only — listed for "any single engine G1000 equipped aircraft" |
| Touchscreen avionics | YES — touch input on G3X Touch, G600TXi and GTN 750Xi, the way they're flown in the real aircraft | NO |
| Native avionics (no pop-outs) | YES — Steam Gauges and G600TXi are rendered by the Hub from live sim data, so they fly in any aircraft with zero per-flight setup | NO — pop-out based, G1000-equipped aircraft only |
| Yoke | FORCE FEEDBACK — real control forces, included in the Premium kit | VirtualFly Yoko — well-built, but no force feedback |
| Panel | Premium full-size all-metal powder-coated panel + thermo-formed glareshield with leather-like finish | RealSimGear Cessna modular panel |
| Frame / chassis | FLIGHT-SPECIFIC — aluminum T-slot extrusion designed for flight sim, with integrated PC bay, casters and cable management | Sim racing rig chassis with a flight mount added |
| Seat | Premium GA-style aircraft seat | Next Level Racing Flight Seat |
| Rudder pedals | Included | VirtualFly Ruddo+ (included) |
| PC | Ryzen 9800 + RTX 5080, included · deduct $3,500 if you already have a machine | Ryzen 7 9800X3D + RTX 5090, 48GB DDR5, 2TB NVMe |
| Displays | YOUR CHOICE — ~$1,200 for three 27″ monitors or three 50″ TVs, or $6,000 for three 55″ wrapped panels matching theirs. Heavy-duty display stand included either way | INCLUDED — three 55″ Samsung ARK 4K monitors |
| Delivery & setup | Ships to your door · remote installation and configuration session included | Assembled, loaded and tested before shipping · two 60″×60″×60″ crates, freight with liftgate |
| Upgrade path | OPEN FRAME — T-slot extrusion takes the FlightVelocity panel lineup, iPad mounts, extra avionics and our own upcoming audio and tactile kits | Optional third-party motion system; custom changes quoted individually |
| Built by | PILOTS & AVIONICS MAKERS — we manufacture the panels, develop the avionics software, and fly the airplanes we simulate. San Diego, CA | Sim racing manufacturer; flight systems integrated from third-party components |
Competitor specifications and pricing are quoted from a public turnkey-simulator product page as of September 2026 and may change; we have deliberately not named the manufacturer — the point of this page is the category, not one company. RealSimGear®, VirtualFly®, Next Level Racing® and Samsung® are trademarks of their respective owners; FlightSimBuilder is not affiliated with any of them. Spotted an error? Email us and we'll correct it — we want this page to stay accurate.
Who actually builds it
This is the part a spec sheet hides. In a flight simulator, the avionics are the product — everything else is a chair, a frame and a screen. So it matters a great deal who made them.
- We manufacture the avionics. The G1000 TNxi panels in this simulator are our own hardware — designed, tooled and built by FlightSimBuilder, not bought in.
- We write the software. The FlightSimBuilder Hub is ours. Native avionics rendering, profile switching and pop-out management are developed in-house and shipped as free updates.
- We make the panels. The FlightVelocity panel lineup is part of FlightSimBuilder, so the cockpit around the avionics comes from the same shop.
- We fly. The people who designed this simulator are pilots, and they answer your support email themselves.
The honest take: these builds are integrations. The avionics come from RealSimGear, the yoke and pedals from VirtualFly, the seat from Next Level Racing, and the chassis is a sim racing rig fitted with a flight mount. Integration is real work and worth paying for — but it can't add a capability the components don't have. It doesn't turn a G1000-only pop-out panel into eight touch-capable avionics profiles.
We went the other way. We manufacture the avionics. We make the panels. We designed the frame around them and we write the software that drives all of it. That's why our simulator is better equipped at roughly half the price at the same screen size — not because anything has been cut out, but because the core of the cockpit isn't bought in from four other companies.
Credit their displays and their graphics card in full, at retail, and the gap is still $26,000 — and that $26,000 isn't going toward multi-profile avionics, a touchscreen, a force feedback yoke, a full-size metal panel or a GA-style aircraft seat, because those builds don't offer them.
We'd rather your budget went into the flight deck than into the supply chain around it.
We went the other way. We manufacture the avionics. We make the panels. We designed the frame around them and we write the software that drives all of it. That's why our simulator is better equipped at roughly half the price at the same screen size — not because anything has been cut out, but because the core of the cockpit isn't bought in from four other companies.
Credit their displays and their graphics card in full, at retail, and the gap is still $26,000 — and that $26,000 isn't going toward multi-profile avionics, a touchscreen, a force feedback yoke, a full-size metal panel or a GA-style aircraft seat, because those builds don't offer them.
We'd rather your budget went into the flight deck than into the supply chain around it.
Common questions
What buyers ask us when they're cross-shopping full simulators.
Are the $30,000–$47,000 simulators bad?
No — they're well-built, thoroughly specified machines, and the one costed out on this page ships larger displays and a stronger graphics card than our standard build. This page exists because "turnkey G1000 simulator" now covers systems that differ by more than $30,000, and buyers reasonably wonder whether a $14,000 simulator is missing something. It isn't — the difference is who manufactures the avionics and panels.
What are my display options?
Two, and you pick at checkout. The budget route is around $1,200 for three 27″ monitors or three 50″ TVs — we tell you exactly what to buy locally, which is usually cheaper than having them shipped and carries no breakage risk. Or take the $6,000 option: three 55″ panels at $2,000 each, wrapped around you, matching the display size the big turnkey builds ship. The heavy-duty stand is included either way, and we set it all up with you remotely.
Isn't a $47,000 system better equipped?
In two specific places, yes — the displays and the graphics card. That's why this page credits both in full before comparing: three 55″ panels (+$6,000) and their RTX 5090 (+$1,000, credited at retail value even though MSFS is CPU-bound enough that the gain is marginal) bring us to $21,000 against $46,999.99. The remaining $26,000 doesn't buy multi-profile avionics, a touchscreen, a force feedback yoke, a full-size metal panel or a GA-style seat, because those systems don't offer them.
Does the $14,000 price really include a PC?
Yes — a Ryzen 9800 with an RTX 5080, configured with the sim and our software preloaded. If you already have a capable machine, subtract $3,500 from the price.
What does "multi-profile" actually get me?
The same physical panels become eight different avionics suites from a dropdown in the FlightSimBuilder Hub — G1000 and G1000 NXi, G3X Touch, two sets of steam gauges, the G600TXi and the TDS GTN 750Xi. A G1000-only simulator flies G1000-equipped aircraft. This one flies whatever you're training in, and you can switch mid-flight without restarting the sim.
How much does force feedback matter?
More than almost any other single upgrade if you're using the sim for proficiency. Control forces load up with airspeed, trim actually does something, and you feel the airplane rather than centring a spring. Neither the VirtualFly Yoko nor any other yoke on that listing offers it.
Can I grow this simulator later?
Yes. The frame is aluminum T-slot extrusion, so anything with a T-slot adapter bolts on — extra FlightVelocity panels, iPad mounts, additional avionics, and the studio-monitor audio package and aviation-tuned tactile transducer system we're developing. Nothing needs to be cut, drilled or replaced.
Do you sell to flight schools?
Yes — the multi-profile capability is the main reason schools choose it, since one cockpit trains students across glass and steam-gauge aircraft. Get in touch and we'll quote a configuration and volume pricing.
Where is FlightSimBuilder based?
San Diego, California. We manufacture here, ship from here, and support emails are answered by the pilots and engineers who designed the product — not a ticket queue.
Build the cockpit, not the markup
A complete multi-profile G1000 simulator with a force feedback yoke, a full-size metal panel and a PC — for about a third of the price.
Premium Simulator — $14,000 See all complete simulators
FlightSimBuilder LLC · San Diego, CA · Comparison data as of September 2026. All trademarks are property of their respective owners. This page is provided for informational purposes; verify current specifications with each manufacturer before purchase.