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Man Builds Fully-Functional Boeing 737 Flight Simulator In His Son's Bedroom
laejoh writes "An aeroplane enthusiast has taken his obsession a step further than most after using his son's bedroom to build a Boeing 737 flight simulator that exactly mimics the real thing. Laurent Aigon, 40, from Lacanau in France, has spent the last five years collecting and buying components from around the world with best friend and fellow enthusiast (obviously) Jean-Paul Dupuy. The pair spent thousands of euros on internet orders for bits and pieces to construct the simulator – which is so realistic that the Institute of Aircraft Maintenance at Bordeaux-Merignac Airport asked him to give a lecture on his achievement. Mr Aigon has since schooled himself in all the procedures for take off and landing and says he is able to fly his 'plane' just like a real-life pilot."
But aside all that, what a GREAT dad!
Pretty cool. Guess after SFO, he's glad it wasn't a 777.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Now witness the capabilities of this fully operational 737 flight simulation!
But haven't dozens of people already done this over the years? For example - http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/04/18/2036248/man-builds-737-simulator-in-a-garage
I had a good friend who was the chief engineer for a major multi-national telecommunications company, who laid out around half a million building a fully functional 747 cockpit in his basement - and that was back in '99. Even had a seat and controls for the navigator.
"The true measure of a person is how they act when they know they won't get caught." - DSRilk
This makes me feel lame - I haven't even finished redoing the bathroom.
"Use your own bedroom, Dad!"
The G
The display in particular is pretty shoddy. I've seen much much better out there in terms of DIY flightsims.
Oh, and to this line in TFA:
"He also has interest from a couple of major aircraft manufacturers who want to use his creation to simulate various scenarios."
No, he doesn't. Aircraft manufacturers have no interest whatsoever in this.
Completely. Go to airliners.net and search for 737 cockpit. You'll see sheep skin covers on all.
e.g. http://www.airliners.net/photo/Copa-Airlines-Colombia/Boeing-737-7V3/2288558/&sid=501f1a8b3c010f0b25433bb222ebff2b
It was a Boeing 777.
VERY good airplane. (Direct quote from an American Airlines 777 First Officer: "Sweetest-flying airplane I ever flew!" Direct quote from a very senior American Airlines 777 Captain: "10 years in 757/767. First time I got in the 777, I realized they'd fixed things I hadn't realized had been bugging me.")
Not really.
It was proven decades ago that you didn't need a motion base under a flight simulator if your visual scene generator was good enough.
What is interesting is that the visual scene doesn't have to be all that good.
I was going to re-build my 787 simulator, but the fire department won't let me.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
No mention of the software used anywhere and no speculation.
One of the pictures looks like a windows desktop, so one would assume one of the Flight Simulator programs, most likely Flight Simulator X. Anyone who messes with the stuff would probably have assumed that from the setup. It's like speculating that the fuel in your car's gas tank is unleaded. It may be a technical detail, but uninteresting and a foregone conclusion anyway.
Learn to love Alaska
Just like model trains and boobs... claimed to be for the kids, but the dads are playing with them.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Quite true. There was an attraction at Disneyland when I was a kid called Circle-Vision 360. It was basically a round room with screens arranged in a circle around you. They shot scenes with a 360 degree camera setup, often from the top of a car or a plane, and played them on the screens. You really felt the sensation of motion.
The fun part was watching people leaning left and right as the motion in the scene went the other direction. There were actually hand rails for people to hang on to so they didn't topple over.
I don't care why you're posting AC
It was a Boeing 777.
VERY good airplane. (Direct quote from an American Airlines 777 First Officer: "Sweetest-flying airplane I ever flew!" Direct quote from a very senior American Airlines 777 Captain: "10 years in 757/767. First time I got in the 777, I realized they'd fixed things I hadn't realized had been bugging me.")
****** A+++++ Wuld fly again
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I've seen several of these flight sim projects. One part of me understands completely why the people who build them build them (I have enough hobbies that others think are a complete waste of time and money to understand entirely why people building flight sims like this want to do it), but another part of my brain is saying "for the money and time invested, you can actually build your own real, flying aircraft you can pilot yourself, and the graphics and frame rate are a lot lot better!".
Kind of reminds me. About a year before they closed Meigs in Chicago (which used to be the default start airport in Microsoft Flight Simulator), I flew in there for real in my elderly Cessna 140. I was kind of surprised when the frame rate didn't slow to about 10 fps when all the buildings of Chicago hoved into view :-)
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
...that exactly mimics the real thing....which is so realistic that the Institute of Aircraft Maintenance at Bordeaux-Merignac Airport asked him to give a lecture on his achievement....He also has interest from a couple of major aircraft manufacturers who want to use his creation to simulate various scenarios...
I maintain and build flight simulators and synthetic trainers all over the world, from France to China and the same again for approvals with regulators. This thing wouldn't even reach class C let alone class D so exactly mimics is bullshit, even class D can't exactly mimic everything. Even if you follow manuals to the letter, things like control workflow and timings are always off, that's why you can even get class C equipment approved even if some of the cockpit control workflow is actually wrong. There are about one hundred of these sorts of in-house setups like this in homes around the world now, even more if you include those which don't use actual cockpit components. Hardware isn't the problem these days with flight sims and synth trainers, hell, I've seen 6DOF motion class C trainers (with projected wrap-around SPOV visuals, none of this monitor crap) that run off one Core i7 system with all I/O (including motion, excluding visuals) being handled by USB! The real problem is the software, that's where all the limitations lie as too much of it is off the shelf software or components all hobbled together, even the stuff from multi-billion dollar US defence contractors whose names I'd love to spill but alas...
It was proven decades ago that you didn't need a motion base under a flight simulator if your visual scene generator was good enough.
Don't need it to do what? To train pilots to operate the flight management system you don't need motion much, but you don't need an outside visual for that either. Manual control behaviour on the other hand has been shown again and again to benefit from motion cues. What you claim to have been proven long ago is in fact not settled at all in the simulation community. Regulations also still require a motion system for high-end training simulators and there's a reason for that.
The choice was probably driven largely by availability of cockpit parts. There is an impressive amount of 737s out there in various states of operation.
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