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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.
Hobbyists have been building home cockpits for years now. I don't know why this is suddenly groundbreaking news. Anyone with about $5000 and a lot of free time can do this.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
I can assure you there are plenty of people out there who own Cessna 172s (the plane this simulator replicates) that dont even HAVE an autopilot function.
For whatever reason anything that gets done using one of those is somehow "news". Doesn't matter if it is the same sort of thing does all the time, if you use a Rift to do it that somehow makes it newsworthy. Most likely because Facebook hypes it.
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.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
When you build this on your own, there is no need to explain every step in the way to someone else, give regular demos, document, and process input and reviews from many sources. Besides, everyone involved needs to get paid, and they work only 40 hours a week max where this kid can pull 100 hours a week for free if he's dedicated. 500k may even be cheap for a one off.
As someone who was in similar boots (doing something as part of a hobby project and at work, not at the same time but still...), I think I can explain this.
When working for yourself, you set the specs. And as with everything in the industry, this is the usual 80/20 game (though often more a 90/10 game): 90% of the work take 10% of the resources. The other 10% take 90%.
And when you work for yourself, you stick with the 90%.
There is no need to redo something 10 times because it's off by a fraction of an inch. It's good enough. There is no need to replace the plywood mockup with stainless steel. You can still do that should for some odd reason the plywood crack, even though you noticed in the tests that the steel casing is by no means necessary since there is no force ever going to get to it.
Then there's the areas that tend to be expensive that you can simply cut entirely in your private project, or that are at the very least entirely up to you. Security. Safety. Comfort. That guy here is using a lawn chair as the pilot's seat. Try that in your commercial simulator!
And finally in a private project you do not pay for the most expensive part of the bill in a commercial project: Work hours. Do you think his project would still be affordable if you only put 20 bucks on every hour he spent working on it? Private projects tend to be VERY heavy in time because you usually have little in the form of money available, while commercial projects usually try to go the opposite route because time IS what costs the most.
No commercial project could ever beat a private one on cost. No chance.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.