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Flight Simulator 2002 With 13 Monitors And 9 PCs
Ant points to Steve Ferris' site demonstrating what Ferris has done "using Wideview software, Multi Monitors and Fs2002 Panel Interior view Bitmaps. 9 PC's & 13 monitors. Server PC is a 2.0ghz AMD and has 1 Asus 4800se G4 AGP and when Motor flying 4 PCI graphic cards for the instrument panels.. All 8 Clients have AGP cards and are AMD 800 to 1.5ghz... My Ask21 Glider with 3 Asus 4800se G4 cards on the front 6 monitors, giving great downward landing view. When you sit in front, all screens line up reasonably well ... Windows XP on the 3 front PC's and 98se on the rest."
Why don't you take some real flying lessons, and maybe buy a plane?
Addition: He could have purchased a low-hour used ultralight for what he paid for this setup.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK.
Notice that only 3 of the computers are running XP. I suspect that he installed it 3 times and couldn't get it activated the 4th time. This reminds me of an article interviewing some Microsoft executive regarding their product activation, which was new and contraversial at the time, where they said that they did not intend for it to prevent casual copying, because that would hurt regular customers, but rather they would only disable a product key after several hundred installs.
One of my bosses is a pilot on the side. Our current and previous offices have both been adjacent to an airport.
There are probably more third party commercial vendors supplying addons for Microsoft Flight Simulator than there are thrid party commercial software vendors for all of Linux.
I actually read this site just yesterday - He's using far cheaper gear.
10 CRTs (currently my company is selling off surplus for $50 a piece) = $500
TFTs - currently, 17" CRTs are about $400 = $1200 He said that they are mostly cheap-o video cards such as the nVidia GF4MX = $40 each ==> $520
PCs - most are of the 800mhz variety - can be had for $200/piece at an auction. --> $1800
Price Total: $4020.
Now, I don't know where this guy lives, but my Private Pilot Certificate PP-ASEL cost me approx $8000 in the SF-Bay Area.
I love flying - read: LOVE flying - nothing comes close.
However, let this guy have his kicks... if he got deals on the gear, it's only 33% more expensive than your high performance gaming PC setup listed on arstechnica and other hobbyist sites.
At least it's better and far cooler than having neon fans and powered liquid coolant systems overclocking by 10% to get 500,000 fps in quake.
How would one go about removing the gaps between the monitors?
Use projectors instead. Or just pretend the gaps are structural pillars between the windows.
Hah, lets see Linux do that..............
... means you're still $35k or so from being close to a real flight in a 737; and you'll still have a ways to go for a 747/777. $15K just means you can fly as an amateur while still forking out for rental time and fuel because you still don't have a plane. And in three years this fellow's computers will be obsolete but still able to do the same job as now so what's the diff?
Sorry, but credit where credit's due; this is a nice set up and way cheaper alternative to the real thing.
A real general aviation airplane is loud. Very loud. My headset has roughly 50dB of noise attunation, and it's still not quiet.
Obviously you're not going to be able to locate another airplane by the sound of it, you won't even hear it at all.
You don't need a good sound system to simulate flying, just a speaker that can survive producing really loud sound.
Al Qaeda probably doesn't even need a simulator. Flying is easier than most people think-- people with no flying experience have landed aircraft under the coaching of another. Flying into a building does not require as much precision.
Some fresnel lenses should do the trick. The monitors with the attached lens boxes could be spaced and angled to make the edges of the lens boxes adjacent.