Just what everyone dreams of having in their spare bedroom: A Boeing 747 flight simulator. That's it in the photo at right, and it was built by a guy called John Davis -- in the spare bedroom of his house in Coventry, England!A reader sent me the link to an article about this home-built sim, which the reader spotted a few days ago on Gizmodo, the website devoted to cool gadgets. Some gadget!
Gizmodo says:
John Davis spent eight years and £15,000 building a Boeing 747 flight simulator in a room in his house. And now the 47-year-old's hobby has turned into such a full-time occupation that he has jacked in his job as a graphic designer to run a full-time flight simulation business from his home in Coventry, UK.That's right. According to his 747 Simulator website, Mr. Davis offers sim rides seven days a week, for the price of £65 ($130) for one hour and £420 ($850) for six hours.
The funny thing is that although Mr. Davis has logged about 2,500 hours in his sim by now, he doesn't have an ATP license, or even a commercial license. He has a glider pilot's license.
Okay, the 'Bedroom 747' is not a full-motion sim, and the flight deck seats really are car seats. (Someone needs to tell him to at least add some sheepskin to make the seats a bit more authentic.) On the other hand, what's in your spare bedroom?
Tip of the hat to the reader who alerted me to this story, and to Addy Dugdale at Gizmodo for posting an interview with John Davis, and lots more photos.
[Photo Source]
