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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?
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.
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.
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.