Man Builds Fully-Functional Boeing 737 Flight Simulator In His Son's Bedroom 128
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."
Can't That Get You Marked as a Terrorist, Now? :-) (Score:5, Insightful)
But aside all that, what a GREAT dad!
Pretty cool. Guess after SFO, he's glad it wasn't a 777.
Not one of the better DIY jobs (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:I'm sure I'll hit my posting limit soon (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:No Stewart platform... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.