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Technology Games Idle

Man Builds 737 Simulator In a Garage 102

Posted by samzenpus from the time-to-fly dept.
linuxwrangler writes "It started with a dream of building a full-sized jet flight simulator. Now, 20 years, $150,000 and one divorce later, James Price can walk to his garage and fly the 737 simulator he built built from the nose of a surplus 737. From the article: 'James Price had one must-have when looking for a new home -- the garage had to be able to hold the nose of a Boeing 737 jetliner. "Once I realized I could get it in here, I was OK with the house," Price said. In his spacious three-car garage Price has a well-traveled jetliner cockpit tucked in next to the family car. Aviation experts say Price, 52, is one of only a handful of people in the world who have built their own flight simulator cockpit in an actual jet nose."

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Man Builds 737 Simulator In a Garage More

Man Builds 737 Simulator In a Garage

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  • Even more impressive... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:17PM (#39728801)

    ...was that guy who built a 737 simulator inside an actual 737.

    He was arrested by the TSA.

  • Cue the investigations.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt AT nerdflat DOT com> on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:21PM (#39728847) Journal
    ... as they make sure that this sort of thing is not being used to train future terrorirsts.

  • somewhere... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:23PM (#39728863)

    some guy somewhere is saying "WOW... Honey, look at what this guy built in his garage for $150,000" and his wife/girlfriend/significant other is yelling "AND ONE DIVORCE!!!!"

    • Re:somewhere... (Score:5, Funny)

      by CanHasDIY ( 1672858 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:25PM (#39728897) Homepage Journal

      some guy somewhere is saying "WOW... Honey, look at what this guy built in his garage for $150,000" and his wife/girlfriend/significant other is yelling "AND ONE DIVORCE!!!!"

      To which the guy responds, under his breath,


      "... lucky bastard..."

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Chrisq ( 894406 )

        some guy somewhere is saying "WOW... Honey, look at what this guy built in his garage for $150,000" and his wife/girlfriend/significant other is yelling "AND ONE DIVORCE!!!!"

        To which the guy responds, under his breath, "... lucky bastard..."

        He must have had a good lawyer. Most divorce settlements leave the man barely able to afford this type of simulator [amazon.co.uk].

    • Re:somewhere... (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:26PM (#39728905)

      The article, should you choose to read it, says: "A 2000 divorce led Price to let loose and pursue his dream.".

      • At least we know in this case she didn't him for chasing tail...

      • "A 2000 divorce led Price to let loose and pursue his dream."Sources say he's frequently been heard exclaiming "So you want me to get a nosejob hey? Hey? How's this for a nosejob!"

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's nothing. I'm building my own garage inside a 737...

    • Re:somewhere... (Score:4, Funny)

      by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Thursday April 19, 2012 @12:33AM (#39731389)

      some guy somewhere is saying "WOW... Honey, look at what this guy built in his garage for $150,000" and his wife/girlfriend/significant other is yelling "AND ONE DIVORCE!!!!"

      And one bloke with a 737 in is garage is saying "it was a bloody good trade".

    • For $150,000, a really decent Stearman can be had.

  • I'm glad they consulted the experts. (Score:5, Funny)

    by djmurdoch ( 306849 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:24PM (#39728881)

    Aviation experts say Price, 52, is one of only a handful of people in the world who have built their own flight simulator cockpit in an actual jet nose.

    Who would have guessed?

  • ... but, if he mods it so it has motion, then it's not going to fit in his garage any more. It will need to be housed somewhere else.

    Will that make it lose it's "prestige" of being a homebrew simulator once it's out of there?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As someone who works on a similar device; if he can afford to mod it with motion, then he probably wouldn't be hurting to find another house with a suitable outbuilding.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by gl4ss ( 559668 )

        As someone who works on a similar device; if he can afford to mod it with motion, then he probably wouldn't be hurting to find another house with a suitable outbuilding.

        the joke is that he could have gotten pretty good motion for 150 000$ if he had ditched wanting to fit it in an actual 737 cockpit.

        a cessna with motion would be a looooot cooler. or a faux mig-21, thinking about it. would be definitely more "man cave".

        anyways(but considering the guy wants to fly a jetliner I suppose it's kinda cool, a lot of effort went to it anyways and rigging it, since he has a lot of the instruments there too as real dials..).

    • I'm surprised that he even bothered with his garage, shopping for a house specifically with one that size. I presume he's without kids now, so getting a giant house with a 3-car garage seems quite overkill compared to a decent 1-person house with a backyard big enough to throw up a good shed large enough to house the simulator.

  • >and one divorce later

    Who could have seen this coming?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I was just going to say, he traded his marriage for the opportunity to build his 737 simulator.
      I don't think that would be my first choice of a trade, but then again I've never met his wife!

    • Re:No Kidding (Score:5, Insightful)

      by PPH ( 736903 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @06:12PM (#39729379)
      Life lesson: Find a wife who either shares your passion or has one of her own. The latter might be better. You won't end up fighting over the details of your shared project. Someone who has her own pursuits won't depend on you to keep her entertained. And she'll understand what drives people to want to accomplish stuff.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by geekoid ( 135745 )

        well, we don't know what happened. Maybe he pulled the money from their kids college? Or spent all his free time at work or in the garage. Or they just didn't get along.

        IF my wife decided to build a simulator in the garage, I would be fine with that, if she drove us into poverty and refused to do anything else, I would have a problem with that.

        • If your wife blew $150,000 on shoes you would have steam coming out of your ears unless your a multi millionaire?

          The article says he is just an air traffic controller! Unless he has a big inherietance I side with the wife on this. It is a very irresponsible thing to do and if you do not have a half million saved by 60 you are in deep shit. SS wont be around until you are 70 due to the upcoming austerity measures that are going to take place in the next set of years. I am not being political here but stating

      • Life lesson: Find a wife who either shares your passion or has one of her own.

        To quote the Mercury News article:

        The first few years the couple lived in the home, "We knew a handful of neighbors," said Debbie Price, a pilot and an air traffic manager at the Palo Alto Airport. "But the weekend we moved (the jet nose) into the garage, we met the entire neighborhood."

        It sounds to me as if Debbie Price is his current wife, and, from the description, might at least understand his passion (they both work in air traffic control and are both pilots).

        • Lets hope she has money.

          She can share his passion but unless he is rich I can fully see his first wife leaving him. $150,000 is no chump change and its a much better goal to invest that or pay off debt regardless if its a cool project. An airtraffic controller should not be blowing $150,000 on his project.

          May God help him if he has kids too. With them its not just money but time being a dad is always more important than yourself.

  • Wow! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SolitaryMan ( 538416 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @05:53PM (#39729191) Homepage Journal

    Just WOW! This is really impressive.

    (I can't believe that among ~15 posters so far nobody said the one thing this article truly deserves, so I have to be the first one)

  • ... he managed to scrape together that much authentic(?) instrumentation. Picking up the cockpit sheet metal is one thing. But they don't just toss these things in the boneyard with working instruments.

    According to TFA, Price has been collecting these parts for quite some time. But that's no easy task either, as working instruments don't generally get tossed out.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      They may get tossed out. actually.
      And most flight instrumentation only requires basic electronic skill to replace. If you have the book.

      I used to repair aircraft instrumentation. Pretty boring and routine.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cffrost ( 885375 )

      [T]hey don't just toss these things in the boneyard with working instruments.

      But sometimes pilots do... Just need to beat NTSB to the scene.

  • I'm doing this too... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by CompMD ( 522020 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @06:02PM (#39729291)
    ...with a bunch of local high school students. Its a long running project that we recently started to build a simulator from a Beechcraft A90 cockpit. The students are doing pretty much all the work, while some of us at local engineering firms offer guidance and help. Right now, they are making their own switch panels and interfacing them with the simulator computers using Arduino boards. The whole simulator is driven by X-Plane. We have 3x55" 1920x1080 monitors wrapping around the windshield, and a real Garmin G1000 glass cockpit system. Check out our class page [bvcaps.org] to learn more about our progress.

    • Nice. I used to live in OPKS, my sister went to BVHS. Didn't know about CAPS. Good stuff!

  • Not as cool as this guy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @06:12PM (#39729377) Journal
    this [dailymail.co.uk] guy, with a replica pan-am cabin in his garage. No word if he has stewardesses with 1970s-style bush.
  • Pretty cool project, I'd love to have one of those in the garage. I wonder if his projectors are projecting a distorted image that looks correct on the screen since they don't appear to be right in front of it.

    As a warning, the article contains a link to his website under renovation. His new site has a link to his old one and when I went there I was getting a Java exploit alert from MSE. YMMV, but thought I'd mention it.

  • Getting to see it (Score:5, Funny)

    by russotto ( 537200 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @07:51PM (#39730251) Journal

    Before you get into the garage, you have to go through his TSA simulator. It's a rubber glove on an articulated arm.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cbope ( 130292 )

      ... and controlled by an uneducated high-school dropout who can't get a job at McD.

  • Pretty cool, however... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fpp ( 614761 ) on Wednesday April 18, 2012 @09:51PM (#39730861)
    I'd really like to see a Millennium Falcon simulator. Full sized cockpit, attacking Star Destroyers, rescuing amputees from weather vanes, the whole nine yards. That would be impressive. Most impressive.

  • ... this certainly is a tool to train terrorists.

  • 1. quirky old white guy, pisses off wife, builds plane nose in his garage because it was a dream, we all get a laugh and are happy for him. He gets high-fives and we admire him. 2. quirky old brown/middle eastern guy builds a plane nose in his garage because it was a dream, he gets raided, confined, interrogated, accused of terrorist activity, loses house, and his $150k simulator. Congress moves to prevent security breaches like this, the outfit that sold him the nose comes under scrutiny, goes out of

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