Abstract: An aircraft cockpit training simulator includes a plurality of aircraft cockpit simulation panels and power over Ethernet (POE) cabling extending therebetween. Each panel includes a simulator user interface device, an input circuit or an output circuit, a POE interface circuit, and a distributed controller coupled to the input circuit or output circuit and POE interface device and asynchronously communicating with other controllers using a publish/subscribe protocol. A host controller is coupled to the distributed controllers via the POE cabling and operates the aircraft cockpit simulation panels using a host computer model. The distributed controllers may operate independent of the host computer model.