Learning To Fly, With a Full-Size Cockpit Simulator

Make Zine features the story of Aidan Fay, a 17-year-old San Diego student who has constructed a full-size Cessna 172 cockpit simulator in his bedroom, controlled by Arduinos and using scavenged game-controller parts. Because the display Fay is using is an Oculus Rift headset, the visual similarity to an actual plane's interior (not to mention the view) isn't as great as some simulators', but the hardware makes it nonetheless more realistic for a headset-wearing pilot than some simulators that might look prettier: he's got actual rudder pedals, and a force-feedback system on a yoke (also real). Fay's interest is more than as a flight simulator enthusiast, though: he's built this system primarily as an educational tool, as he works to get around a medical problem that's delayed his quest for a pilot's license.

Comments

Re:We Suck

[TWX]

I work an aerospace company in simulation and it's taken us $500k to build pretty much the same thing as this kid for no other reason but inefficiency. We suck so bad, why do I work here?

There are other reasons. One of them is accuracy- you need your commercial simulator to operate the faux control surfaces with the exact same positioning, speed, resisting pressure, and variations thereof in all different conditions to make the simulator worthwhile to the commercial customer.

When I was in junior high school we had a yoke thing for the Macintosh LCII that interfaced to the mouse to control the software yoke in Microsoft Flight Simulator. It was crappy and was probably about as realistic as its pricepoint could justify. It got out of calibration extremely easily.

This simulator sounds like the halfway point. Much better than the crappy toy, but not quite as realistic or accurate as the commercial product.