PLANNING
PLAN A
I first thought about a full-blown panel with actual gauges, yoke, throttle, etc. like this one Michael Neal from Colorado USA built with his Pops and with parts from SIMKITS and CH flight controls

http://www.simkits.com/buildersection.php
http://www.chproducts.com/retail_flash/index.html

I soon realized SIMKITS were quite expensive, so on to Plan B.

PLAN B
“Instead of actual SIMKITS gauges, how about images of the gauges on computer monitors?” I asked myself. This made more financial sense and began researching this possibility.

Prioritizing components:
First: Panel dimensions.
This is first because panel dimensions will dictate monitor sizes and their availability will make or break Plan B.

http://gallery.tigert.com/gallery/c172dim?page=1

From actual Cessna panel measurements, it was clear I only had ~10” from the Yoke bar to top of glare-shield to fit a monitor. I searched the web and e-bay for such a monitor and found either really small monitors or monitors bigger than 10”.
So as far as I’m concerned, the panel project is at a standstill because if I’m unable to find a 10” tall VGA monitor my other option would be to attempt to fit a larger monitor into that space and the distance between the yoke bar and the top of the glare shield will be unrealistically large.



PLAN B STAYS ALIVE:
After several weeks of watching e-bay for a VGA monitor small enough to fit into the ~10” space, one such monitor is listed.  (to be continued soon)