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

Train terrorists... IN YOUR GARAGE!

[syukton]

Am I the only one that's a little unsettled by this? No need for suicidal terrorist hijackers to go to flight school and get their names written down on paper and entered into databases for tracking; when a paltry $30,000 investment gets them a damn good flight simulator.

I'm not trying to be funny, I'm trying to be dead serious. As it stands, since 9/11, the US government has been able to track down some of the hijackers and tell which flight schools they attended, and etc. But what about when a hijacker doesn't need to attend flight school; never even has to put his name down on paper, or enter it into a database, or even interact with anyone at all? If some fellow in his garage can throw this together on a $30k budget, what can an oil baron with $2M to throw at it create? They say that the terrorist cells that planned 9/11 were at it for upwards of 7 years, so it is surely obvious to everyone that they'd be willing to throw down the time and effort to build one of these simulators. (No doubt in the trailer of a large truck, so it can tour all over the country and train every single last cell there is...)

Am I paranoid, or spot-on? Should this be cause for concern, or not?