OBERTSHAUSEN, Germany—Hans Krohn climbs into his cockpit, adjusts the computers and enters flight coordinates for New York's La Guardia Airport. Upstairs, his cat crawls around the kitchen.
Mr. Krohn's cockpit is part of a homemade flight simulator that never leaves his home. Yet it has dials, switches and pedals almost exactly like those on a genuine jet plane. The 52-year-old banker has spent more than 15 years building his machine, at a cost of more than $20,000.
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Matthew SheilAustralian Matthew Sheil has spent years building one of the world's most sophisticated amateur flight simulators in the garage of his truck-parts company in Sydney.
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"When I started, it was a really weird hobby," says Mr. Krohn. Today, anyone can buy a disembodied cockpit almost good enough to train airline pilots—the only issue is price.
To extreme builders like Mr. Krohn, fake flying is only part of the fun. Their true fascination is figuring out how to simulate a simulator.
"Mine's made out of beer cans and truck parts," says Australian Matt Sheil, who built a 747 jumbo jet cockpit in the garage of his truck-equipment company in Sydney. His simulator runs off 14 computers using 45 programs, some of them custom written. It can bank and pitch, like a real plane. Yet the steering column is an exhaust pipe. "You'd be surprised how many parts a Kenworth truck and a Boeing 747 have in common."
Professional simulators can cost more than $10 million and require a team of computer technicians to operate. Pilots use them for training because they are less expensive—and safer to crash—than airborne aircraft. Simulator interiors precisely duplicate actual cockpits. They include video screens showing ever-changing exterior views so realistic they can inspire motion sickness. Some sit on pistons that can shake and rattle pilots.
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