Front section of Boeing 737 recycled as superb flight simulator

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The Boeing 737-130 was originally delivered to Lufthansa Airlines in December 1968

Price takes delivery of the 2,500-pound nose section in June 2000

The cockpit as it was before restoration and conversion work began

Another view of the state of the cockpit when first delivered to Price

The 737 nose section is moved into its new hangar home

A movable base is attached to the bottom of the 737 cockpit

Price and his small team of enthusiasts spent months stripping out left-over equipment and circuitry, cleaning up the shell and then painting the interior of the cockpit

Painting the interior is coming along nicely

Wiring the overhead panel is not as simple as it looks

The overhead panel after installation

Work begins on writing the simulation code

The addition of a cockpit nose lends even more authenticity to the build

All of the hard work pays of in December 2001, the flight sim is operational

More programming work, computer technology has moved on a bit since the start of the build

Working on the GoFlight module for the radios in 2003

A projector screen in front of the nose plays the flight simulations

View of the 737 sim's cabin

Price says that genuine 737 hardware has been used in the cockpit where it was available

New seats, dual controls, instruments, dials, clocks, and lots of lights have been added to make it look, feel and behave just like a real aircraft

The 737 simulator's throttle pedestal, flight control unit, control display unit, data interfaces and panels

Air traffic controller and pilot James Price has spent $150,000 and the last 12 years building a flight simulator made from an actual Boeing 737 nose section

Article Summary

Like many computer users of my generation, I've notched up many hours of virtual flight time in a number of fairly realistic simulation programs. There are those who are simply not satisfied with keyboard, mouse and joystick control of jet fighters and passenger airplanes on a desktop computer system, though. Air traffic controller and pilot James Price is one such simulation-junkie who has taken his desire for realism to dizzy new heights by having the nose lopped off a veteran Boeing 737, fitting out the gutted cockpit with working controls, dials and monitors and then interfacing the hardware with flight simulation software. It's been a labor of love but we think the result is well worth the enormous amount of time and effort that's gone into the build.

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