Build Your Own Boeing 737 Simulator

crux6rind writes "This guy built his own Boeing 737-700 simulator in his garage. The simulator uses elements of a retired Continental B-737-100 along with other genuine Boeing 737 avionics and system components. The simulator will be of the fixed-base variety (no motion, just outside visuals), using Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000, interfaced with R&R Electronics' EPIC system. This system allows you to interface switches, lights, buzzers, gauges, digital readouts with virtually any PC flight simulator out there."

Comments

More in the current Air & Space magazine

[netringer]

Give credit where credit is due. This and others are in the current June/July 2003 issue of Air and Space Smitsonian magazine. Links from the artcicle:

• One from OZ built into a Ford chassis
  
• An F/A 18 Hornet simulator made from wood, also in OZ
  
• A Boeing 767 in London that "flies" around the world
  
• A "multi-mission simulator" by an avionics engineer in the US
• An F-15 in Washington

You're welcome.

Let's try not to Slashdot 'em too badly.

Full motion not required...

[KC7GR]

In my six years at Boeing (and I'm told that, given the layoffs, I did well to last that long), I was fortunate enough to be able to 'fly' the full-motion 747 sim, as well as the fixed-base 737 NextGen.

Although the full-motion is definitely what I'd class as a "wild ride" in terms of convincing one's senses (ever try to land a 747 on only two engines?), I found that (much to my surprise) the fixed-base sims can produce many of the same sensations, simply by the projected movement on the window displays.

In other words: When I went into a climb in the fixed-base unit, it still felt like I was tilting up despite the fact that there were no motion components to move the cab around. Same thing when I went into a turn. I caught myself leaning into it, and feeling like it was really happening, just as I did during my private pilot training.

While fixed-base may not provide the full experience, it most definitely provides enough to effectively fool the senses if it's done right. And it sounds like this fellow did it right.