hey guys it's norm from tested i'm here with jim price we are in your home in
your garage but it's not an ordinary garage because behind us it looks like
an airplane what is that behind us Boeing 737 built in 1968 or 69 cycled
out in 1987 and was going to be scrapped and so I decided to save her and cut her
off at this section that I wanted and had him trucked it trucked out here and
began my project with the 737 simulator so that's what this is it's not just the
cock in the fuselage of a 737 it is a real working flight simulator that you
have it you've built out in your garage yes yes 90% of the systems are working
we've all been custom programmed by me and my friend Matt Ford and we have an
instructor station for engine failures and fires and all kinds of different
scenarios and every system in the overhead panel and the instrument panel
all those work the way they're supposed to in the real airplane oh my goodness
so take me back to the very beginnings and Jim I triggered air traffic
controller you live and breathe airplanes right pretty much yeah and are
you your pilot also a pilot as well yes I own my own Piper arrow and I started
flying in 1980 and I picked up the flight simulator hobby in 1994 when I
was getting my instrument rating yes it's computer monitors and you you've
built like flight simulators before before he started this project you just
had one out of wood right correct it started in the corner of my office and
it was a single seater I put in a wood overhead panel with a real overhead
panel insert and after a while I decided I'm as well go full-bore I wanted a two
seater the real size in the whole nine yards so in the same room I built a
complete sub structure overhead panels the whole thing so it was actual same
size as a real cockpit turn it into a full cockpit so how did this opportunity
come up to actually get a real 737 and build a simulator in that well Matt Ford
was the first one to actually buy one he found he lives in Dallas or lived in
Dallas at the time and he knew of a wrecking yard up in Ardmore
Oklahoma and he and his brother were flying over there one day and they saw
all these carcasses at 7:37 sitting on the ground so he went and inquired and
he actually bought one on the spot the sister ship to this one and it's
actually a little bit smaller than mine his was already cut but he's the one
that turned me onto and then I got excited about it and then in June of
2000 I decided to buy my own well I said it's 12 years in the as a project and
you're not finished yet you said you're going to paint it and but yeah I want to
finish her up I want to paint it I'm going to put the Boeing Dreamliner paint
scheme on it hopefully I'm not sure how it's going to work with just the cockpit
section and then I want to completely redo the visual system for the outside
I've concentrated four years on the inside the cockpit to get everything
working and that's finally at a point where I think it's pretty good so now
it's time to enhance the outside yes talk about the inside of the cockpit so
you buy the frame you buy the nose of a plane and that's cool to look at but on
the inside you have all the instrument panels like how do you go about buying
the same insurance at going real planes they're all retired planes that these
parts are laying around and they either can't be put back in a plane again but
for safety reasons or they just want to get rid of them so once in a while a
lucky hobbyist like me can can actually get in and get a good deal because
normally they're very very expensive our gyms we've talked a lot about the
construction the instrumentation the systems of this 737 simulator let's go
inside the Kaufman actually take a look at those systems fantastic
okay Jim we're in the cockpit this looks like it's what I know a 737 looks like I
am absolutely blown away this is not at all what I was expecting even after
seeing the pictures Petach - this is awesome that this is really amazing how
much of the stuff is original from from from an actual plane how much is it like
aftermarket kid stuff for cockpit enthusiasts how much is something you
came up with yourself that's real simple to answer I can point out what's real
what slow yeah let's let's give some example so obviously obviously control
wheels of control columns this is the real 737-200 throttle pedestal
okay use your throttle just like a boat okay he sees that like if I see the
engine power actually coming up as I push them forward so all of these are
actual real components Radiohead's intercom system trim panels
this is the unlock that the door in the back and stab trim stuff okay
transponder which actually beams your discrete beacon code AC signals tells
you where we are exactly when you're work right okay and you can change that
simply by they'll tell you to squawk a certain number they call it squawking
okay you type it in there and now they know where you are so when you're flying
the plane do you have other friends that the sim the air traffic control side and
there is a whole online community where you can do a full on ATC flight from
just about any point in the world oh that's amazing
it's it is amazing some some people like to do the controlling side of it some
people do the flying and you can actually see them if you're at an
airport you can hear them and see them taxiing around it's all linked together
beauty Internet oh that's amazing it's and and so the software you're running
is x-plane that's the that's the core sim software for the whole project
explain 10 yes okay and I think you said you earlier started with flight
simulator but x-plane seems like it's more conducive to the hardcore I used
flight simulator microsoft flight simulator for years and years and years
and it was really grateful for what it did I switched to explain because I
think the flight dynamics are much more realistic okay so so when you take a
piece of actual equipment that came from a plane obviously the electronics behind
the switches aren't the original electronics right explain a little bit
about how you're connecting all this stuff into the machine and and how did
you figure out how to I mean all the stuff is wired up right it is this is
that's amazing so you pull the panel's out and just do a ton of soldering a ton
of soldering basically what you're looking for is you want the the front
the the face that's the main important part okay as you get the real feel of
the real switches the lights and all that behind it with my set up with the
epic card it's basically a matrix set up eight
switches per line okay and my friend Ted dollars actually
made circuit boards where you can wire into the circuit boards and a plug in
via a ribbon cable to the epic card okay and so you just recognize the switch
change right and then in the software it sees that and you tell it what you want
it to do so so first you have to wire up all the
panels and then I assume you're going to sit in here flipping switches and you're
going to say what that switch is and somebody on the other side of the
computer is going to say okay we'll make that one here's what you you want to
turn on the landing light yeah you see this switch go clink clink on/off you
tell the send up command to flight simulator turn on there and landed
that's the landing light okay this seems really straightforward it that way it's
straightforward but the logic and getting them to work like the real
system that's where the challenges and and I assume that this is way more work
than you did by yourself when you when you pulled all these panels out and
wired them up were you just saying soldering for months and months and
months on end or I had a lot of help okay my friends Matt Ford Ted Deller
Matt wheeler spec they all have their own projects we've kind of formed this
tight-knit little group and we flight to each other's locations and we'll sit
there for a whole weekend and solder panels and drink beer and
then we hopefully by that time and we have to leave we'll get an hour to fly
oh it's fantastic so we spend the entire time on the bench
or underneath the cockpit or you know and so to do this entire thing myself I
would still be working on it probably only be 25% done and and right now so
every virtually everything we're looking at here including some of the stuff this
stuff behind me - circuit breaker panels are all real all wired in wired sim how
does that interact with the sim like how many computers do you have running all
this stuff I think I have five or six computers now I've lost track each one
has their own specialty like one computer runs this whole display system
across the front okay which is one of the parts that isn't that the real
aircraft these are actually just LCDs behind these panels these are the real
bezels out of the airplane okay everything behind it is not well I have
to assume the glass the glass panels and Planes haven't been cycled cycled
through enough to get lined up in scrap yards not only that but they're very
very difficult to interface to talk to they require special power and inputs
and all kinds of different things and then all the display that the navigation
and the engine displays all that's written by mark Hastings with sim IV
onyx he's getting complete custom suite he does all the auto pilot stuff flight
management system everything so what is it wired up you show me what is in Wired
tell me the thing that doesn't work I look at everywhere I look that's gonna
be tough because we're done a lot of fire bells and that's that's scary you
need a drink from the bag hey Norma I'd like a gin and tonic please this is this
is probably the only a 737 you can fly it up cocktails that's right okay and
your landings get better no cupholders though Jimmy well I take
it back there are seven girls right that's been one of the first things that
went in so explain to me how the hell you're swimming the navigation stocking
so Marc hastens software is doing the actual logic that the ground tracking
the turning the autopilot systems as far as automatically climbing descending
turning he does all that in his software and then there's another plugin for
explain it's called XP UI PC and it's written by tourists and spearing in
Germany so that allows us to send data and receive data back from x-plane and
that's kind of the link with the software so you have navigation software
that ties into sim GPS that tracks your simulated position that then fires that
back into the plane simulator to tell you where you are and then that talks to
the autopilot so the autopilot can get you where you're going right at all time
together bananas this is absolute bananas and and it seems like dozens of
people have contributed different pieces to the to the software that you all
share for your different projects it's amazing
it is and without that it wouldn't be possible I mean there's no way I don't
think that one person could sit down with you the whole thing is there a real
black box it's red it's red orange actually but not in this one not this
one you know need I did have it set up with a taping system as well as some
cameras so someone came to fly I could send them home with a VHS tape at this
time I haven't been reconnected so let's talk a little bit about the screens
itself as you said you've spent hours and hundreds and thousands of hours
building the cockpit out and haven't really focused so much on the outside
but this looks great to me well you're right I've spent my entire
life practically making it real in here because a lot of times actually when I'm
flying them in the clouds you don't really see anything but the screens
outside they're just regular pulldown screens I've got three 1024 by 768
projectors so it's all projection system okay I want to eventually upgrade the
projectors and I also want to do a complete curve till green so you don't
get the gaps in the middle and everything and I need to add two more
computers to get the correct angles on the side cuz right now on the sides is
kind of stretched just by the way it virtually the way it sets up so I still
have a lot of work to do out there and it can look a lot a lot better so how
mobile is this is it something that you can it seems like it's a pretty big
undertaking if you wanted to move it eh okay yes trucks and forklifts and
cutting holes in the side of the grad bed trucks and you pulling out the
garage door and the header and the other so quite a bit before okay well Jim
thank you so much for showing us around your cockpit this is absolutely amazing
you're welcome unlike anything I ever expected to see you but website that we
should definitely talk about yes 737 Sen guide.com okay it's a little bit
outdated but I need to work on that people want to learn more than they can
go there and find out you've talked you into the entire project more or less
more or less it's a big project so a lot of documentation another good spot is
cockpit builders calm okay it's all people doing the same sort of thing and
a great place to learn and get ideas and share ideas fantastic we'll be back real
soon you're going to take us on a flight and until then I'm welcome testing you
guys later