Come fly with me

September 4, 2006 5:54 PM

Flight simulator. As a hobby, this guy built his own Boeing 747 flight simulator. No, not just a PC simulation, but a full cabin with hydraulics motion simulation a correct control panel and the full works, just like the real thing. (via Neatorama)
posted by caddis (24 comments total)

OK, make your own watch, make your own full fledged 747 flight simulator, my current hobby of building tube amps seem so quaint by comparison. Some people take hobby to incredible levels.
posted by caddis at 5:55 PM on September 4, 2006

You think your building tube amps looks quaint? I've been trying to build my own audio commentary for The Blair Witch Project. Nothing's lamer than that.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:59 PM on September 4, 2006

followed a neatorama link from hereabouts (maybe mecha?) yesterday--what a great site!

The Simulator has been built to accept full motion and visuals at a later date.

I wanna do barrel rolls in a 747.
posted by carsonb at 5:59 PM on September 4, 2006

Yes, Neatorama is one of the best link sites around these days. Lots of very interesting, pretty, shiny things to look at.
posted by caddis at 6:05 PM on September 4, 2006

I'm willing to bet that "homeland security" (whatever the heck that means now, other than the fact that it took me an hour to get back into the states from Canada yesterday) has either looked into or will look into this gentleman... a terrible place we live in...
posted by HuronBob at 6:08 PM on September 4, 2006

posted by HuronBob: I'm willing to bet that "homeland security" ... has either looked into or will look into this gentleman...

Yeah, and I reckon if he was Muslim he'd already be in jail. But aside from these depressing conjectures, this Sheil guy is AMAZING!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:15 PM on September 4, 2006

I click the link and it brings up Chinese text. Maybe it's my browser, I'm using Firefox, I dunno.
posted by sawthesign at 7:39 PM on September 4, 2006

fixed it
posted by sawthesign at 7:47 PM on September 4, 2006

Its Austrailia so I doubt they had a problem with their DHS equivalent. When those guys from Chasers bought tickets for "Al Kyder" and "Terry Wrist" there didnt seem to be much response from the government then (at least based on the media reports I read).
posted by SirOmega at 8:16 PM on September 4, 2006

Holy shit. That is awesome.
posted by dg at 8:43 PM on September 4, 2006

"Its Austrailia so I doubt they had a problem with their DHS equivalent."

foreign terrorist training ground!!
posted by carsonb at 12:53 AM on September 5, 2006

his website is really really broken in FF for me. The menu's just dont work at all.

Neat toy though. Thats a lot of time and money right there.
posted by lemonfridge at 5:08 AM on September 5, 2006

just don't say snakes on a plane
posted by baker dave at 5:38 AM on September 5, 2006

I wanna do barrel rolls in a 747.

I've always been curious about this. Any aviators out there? Can you actually do barrel rolls with a 747 while maintaining the structural integrity of the aircraft?
posted by Hypnic jerk at 6:06 AM on September 5, 2006

You can barrel roll a 707.
posted by Cyrano at 6:38 AM on September 5, 2006

707 barrel roll video here.

AskMe question here.

I have seen reference to a 747 in China accidentally doing a barrel roll after losing an engine during clear air turbulence, but haven't yet found any good documentation.
posted by TedW at 7:29 AM on September 5, 2006

TedW: Not sure if a barrel roll in a 747 could be done by accident. An American International Airways (Kalitta) 747-200 had an engine fall off the aircraft over Lake Michigan. The flight crew thought it was just a malfunction but when they landed, they noticed that the whole engine was gone. News stories about it.
posted by drstein at 9:43 AM on September 5, 2006

drstein: Here is some discussion about the China Air incident, but as I said, I don't know how accurate it is. It seems unclear as to whether it actually rolled; in any event it was still flyable, but was missing some parts afterward.
posted by TedW at 10:33 AM on September 5, 2006

Caddis - something to add to your 'tube amps' links collection?
posted by jkaczor at 5:48 PM on September 5, 2006

Cool flightsim, and even cooler via!
posted by owhydididoit at 6:24 PM on September 5, 2006

I'm fascinated by his ability to build a full flight simulator, and his utter inability to provide links on his website of a decent colour.
posted by Frasermoo at 6:38 PM on September 5, 2006

Yeah, I had the same thought (as well as the "whole site is badly broken in Firefox" issue), but the coolness of the flight simulator led me to forgive him.
posted by dg at 7:20 PM on September 5, 2006

Thanks jkaczor.
posted by caddis at 7:23 PM on September 5, 2006

I've always wanted a realistic Mercury/Apollo cockpit simulator. One of these days maybe I'll build one. Until then, there's A-OK! The Wings of Mercury.
posted by neuron at 7:34 PM on September 5, 2006