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

Not new.

[kuzb]

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.

Re:Not new.

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Well, I think it is news. Most of "those meddling kids today" spend all their time looking at crap on Facebook and YourBoobs. This kid actually went out and constructed something! I can see my mom know:

Mom: "Kid, what are you building in your bedroom?"

Me: "It's just a flight simulator, Mom."

Mom: "Ok . . . as long as you are not using it to cook crack or smuggle in weed from Mexico, we are fine with that."

Anyway, Slashdot is not about reading the news . . . it's about reading about what other geeks think about the news. I wouldn't mind a story being posted here about the various sizes of Kardashians' asses. Someone would post that he just completed his Ph.D. dissertation on the mathematical models of pseudo celebrity asses.

This guy would be trumped by someone claiming to have earned his doctorate on the physical motion of ass cracks.

. . . and then, the "Lone Liberal Arts Major" would chime in about the esthetics of ass antlers . . .

To summarize, you don't read Slashdot for the news . . . you read it for the wacky commentary about it.

Re:Wait until he finds out

[jonwil]

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.

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.