Build Your Own Flight Simulator

by Nicole Weston (RSS feed)
Feb 7th 2007 at 2:02PM

There are several options available to the person interested in learning to fly. The first, and perhaps most obvious option, is to take flying lessons. A more grounded alternative is to simply use a flight simulator, which can give you the feeling of flying without actually doing so. Instead of renting time in a simulator somewhere, Australian hobbyist Matthew Sheil built his very own Boeing 747 flight simulator. It has real-time weather, air traffic control, Qantas Airways food, a complete hydraulic motion system and is controlled by 13 computers. His reason for building it is that "crashing is less fatal" with a simulator. Interested in trying to build your own? All it will take is $230,000 and about 10 years.