Imgonnatrythis,

I’d say good chance this guy does have a plane.

Nastybutler,

I’d put money that he has at least a small plane. I work in the motorcycle industry and there’s a large overlap between pilots and motorcycle riders for some reason. Quite a few private pilots have pretty well set up flight sim rigs at home. Not to this extreme, but most have the basics for running MS Flight Simulator

nonailsleft,

So they can fly the planes they want

aesthelete,

I work in the motorcycle industry and there’s a large overlap between pilots and motorcycle riders for some reason.

I got a single neighbor who has two different cars, a bunch of e-scooters, and builds different e-bikes constantly in his garage. Some people are just enthusiastic about modes of transportation I think…

Imgonnatrythis,

“pilots and motorcycle riders for some reason”

The suicide drive is strong. Also, I blame top gun.

Edgarallenpwn,
@Edgarallenpwn@midwest.social avatar

The two people I know with a pilot license also love motorcycles and top gun. Also cocaine.

Imgonnatrythis,

TbF who doesn’t love cocaine and top gun?

BURN,

Pilots and sports car owners too. Tbh I think pilots just like to go fast, on the air or on the ground

maynarkh,

Doing a PPL and I’m already considering getting at least a scooter. Easy and fast transport to the bumfuck nowhere area of the airport we fly from, I need to go regularly but never take any pax.

It just works.

dustyData,

No matter how expensive a home sim you make, it won’t ever get be even a quarter of what an actual entry amateur plane costs to buy and maintain. It’s not even the plane itself either, it’s all the recurring costs like storage, maintenance, spare parts, fuel, certification fees, taxes, etc. The only cheap flight option for a recreational pilot is bushcraft light planes. And they will still cost more than the sim setup, while you’ll only be able to fly it on certain places, during certain weather, at certain times of the year. The rest of the time you’ll still have to pay all the storage and maintenance fees. Planes are incredibly expensive.

Aceticon, (edited )

Indeed.

Back when I was making extra good money I got some flying lessons and started dreaming about it and eventually figured out the costs (bad enough the upfront ones, way worse the running costs) for a shitty-shit plane that wasn’t even exciting to fly.

Also the physical setup in the picture looks like it’s emulating large commercial passenger planes (don’t really know enough to guess which, though) and those planes cost millions of dollars.

Coasting0942,

Yeah, you’ll be able to actually use it when life allows you, vs restructuring your whole life around being able to fly.

Now we just need one for where millionaires think their work is saving the world. Apparently the city building sims aren’t sufficient.

CADmonkey,

Wet rental?

dustyData, (edited )

Wet lease? Yeah, clubs and leasing are an accessible option but depends on what you want to do. Flying a tiny 182 Cessna, sure will be as much as a nice Sim setup. For one flight, at $200 an hour, roughly 25 hours of flight or thereabouts and you’re already over the price of the simulator.

Fly commercial jets, like the one this picture is simulating? No way. A small Citation jet starts at $50k a month. That’s probably already 5 times the cost of equipment in that photo. And you can fly the big birds and do crazy stuff with them in the sim.

Zaros,
@Zaros@lemmy.world avatar

Plus I’m afraid of heights.

Aceticon, (edited )

I have some fear of heights and for some reason it doesn’t get triggered when flying on a plane, even on a prop-plane a km or two above the ground.

High up in tall buildings or mountain or coastal cliffs, sure, planes, not at all.

It’s not exactly rational.

If you’re not actually afraid of flying when on a commercial flight, I bet you won’t either when at the commands of a poky prop-plane.

psud,

There’s heights and there heights. The common fear is of heights that are large enough for a fall to cause serious injury, and not too large to be out of range for biological fall protection

I used to be afraid of heights, but trained myself out of it as an adult. I had trouble abseiling, walking on elevated walkways, standing near windows in tall buildings

Three things I never had a height problem with:

  • Front seat of a plane (or any other seat, for that matter)
  • Basket of a balloon
  • On top of a tall hill
CptEnder,

I fucking love the dedication people put into their sin rigs. Their joy makes me so happy, even more so when it’s related to their real work. This guy is a trucker and recreated his entire cabin for his American Trucker sim. He’s my fucking hero: youtube.com/shorts/EmpAJR5lNuQ?si=Z324Z-M_pGG_9Bp…

SlopppyEngineer,

sin rigs

Let me guess, it comes in 50 shades of grey

Cornpop,

Yes and no. I bought a property with a double wide and a 5000 square foot hangar on it located on a private strip. The rent from the double wide and the other hangar spots I rent pays the mortgage and all the expenses related to the property. I own a j3 cub that I have about 30k into that I fly daily in Florida and maintain it myself for practically nothing. Affordable aviation is possible but you have to be very smart about how you go about doing it, and a good bit of luck is involved to get the right deals by being in the right place at the right time.

dustyData,

Yes, but I bet that if you break down the accounting it would still be several times the cost of the setup on the photo. Home sims typically don’t carry an additional mortgage payment or a lifestyle commitment.

Cornpop,

You would be surprised how much that setup would cost. Could easily be 30k in equipment there.

dustyData, (edited )

That setup is not 30k, I know because I’m a sim hobbyist. Maybe if it had a surround canopy or a motion chair, maybe, and it’s just maybe, it will start approaching 10k. Most people consider motion to be secondary and unnecessary for commercial flight simulation, and people are increasingly preferring VR over modular panels. Sim still doesn’t require uprooting your life to live in the middle of nowhere, switching careers, and going into debt to buy property and risk financial ruin with a fickle investment. It’s ok, some people are fine flying sim because they never would get to fly an Airbus IRL and wouldn’t want a job as a airline pilot to get to do it, they just want to play pretend, and that’s fine.

That’s not even counting the not small chunk of people who are actually commercial pilots who also build sim rigs in their homes.

Cornpop,

None of the stuff applies to owning an aircraft in my case either. I’m still where I grew up. I never switched careers, and how is it a fickle investment where I’m literally cash positive on the whole thing, building equity in something that will be worth a ton in the future… you think investments are risk free or something?

DasAlbatross,

Oh sure, just go buy a big enough property to have a hanger and a private landing strip on it. Cheap and easy!

Cornpop,

Never said it was easy, but I have less than 60k of my cash into everything, including a property that generates me money back. You gotta work for what you want. It’s not like I just inherited the capital to do this. I worked for it. And now I have something that will not only pay for itself but pay me as well. But go ahead and just try to hold yourself down with that thought process if you want.

bobs_monkey,

If you’re ok with living in the middle of nowhere, then it’s entirely doable. Some folks just have different priorities.

For instance, here is a property in Yucca Valley, CA that has a hanger in the backyard, where you can head out right on the runway from your yard. Just under $300k. There’s an entire street of houses that are adjacent to the runway of a small municipal airstrip, I think they call them fly in/fly out communities. They’re often well off the beaten path, but you don’t have to pay for storage when you have a hanger out back.

www.zillow.com/homedetails/…/17496243_zpid/

alp,

I’m not saying that those deals are bad, but we are still talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars, where a sim setups is 30k or 40k at most.

Cornpop, (edited )

Dude I have a mortgage. I put 25k down on the property. I rent out the house and 3 spots in the hangar. I get enough income from rent on the property to pay the mortgage and have profit on top every month. I’m not a rich by any means. But I live comfortably enough.

alp,

I mean, I hope you get rich mate! Yeah I understand your point, and I am also definitely happy that affordable aviation is not a multimillionaire only dream. Though still those simulations are maybe 5 percent of the costs we are talking, yet :(

Cornpop,

Yea I’m in FL in a small town. If you want to live in a big city aircraft ownership is on a whole different level of cost.

Aceticon, (edited )

You have to have the kind of life and professional occupation which is compatible with living in such a place.

Not many people have or are willing to change their lives in order to be able to fly regularly on a real plane like that. It’s like people who chose to live on a boat and sail around the World (doable, if you adjust your whole life to it and have the skill to work in the kind of occupation compatible with it).

Meanwhile a setup like the one on the picture is a lot easier to work into one’s life, even living in appartment in the middle of a city and with a 9-to-5 regular Joe job.

nonailsleft,

Ok so buy a house next to a strip with your own hangar and become an airplane mechanic. How come I never thought of this?

Cornpop,

If you’re truly passionate about flying and owning aircraft then you do what you have to do to make it happen, that’s what I did anyways. Exactly that. And I have less than 60k of investment in everything. The property generates profit now.

nonailsleft,

Fair enough, and I respect the commitment and that you share how you made it work. Without going ‘all-in’, having our own plane is a dream that’ll never go through…

(But I can imagine that even with the same commitment a lot of people wouldn’t have the opportunity to copy it - money is one thing but available property is another)

Cornpop,

Agreed, a bit of luck is absolutely necessary.

Zoidsberg,
@Zoidsberg@lemmy.ca avatar

59% of Americans are one paycheque away from homelessness.

Cornpop,

Yea, I’m one of them lol. I run my own business and if I shutdown for a month I’d be screwed.

cm0002,

I looked into getting a pilots license and a plane once thinking maybe it would be more fun than flying commercial.

The license to fly just a dinky Cessna would be expensive af and I would only be able to afford a Cessna from 1982 or some shit anyway AND they only have a range of like 300 miles or some shit.

To actually go anywhere beyond my state I’d need a private jet license which is even more expensive takes a while and WAY outside of affordability.

Ah well guess I’m stuck driving or flying commercial

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

just buy a plane

Yeah, I don’t think you can get a Mig-29 or a F-16 off e-bay, amazon or craigslist.

rambling_lunatic,

You can probably get a Cessna.

Aceticon, (edited )

The cheapest Cessna (say a half-a-century old Cessna-150 with only a thousand or hours left on the engine before mandatory refurbishment) will set you back maybe $20k.

Then there’s the maintenance costs (one every 50 flight hours, a bigger one every 100 flight hour and so on as well as the yearly one), plus insurance and fuel.

Oh, and flying one of those planes is not really excitting (except for landings, those are cool) mainly because it cruises at 90 knots airspeed (about 160 Km/h) which at the minimum flying height per flight regulations (except during takeoff and landing) which is 1000 feet (around 300m) does not feel at all fast.

Absolutelly, spend $30k (if you get it as a kit and assemble it yourself) and you can get something a little more excitting … or spend $2k in that setup (I’m guessing, assuming you assemble it yourself) and let the Suspension Of Disbelief save you the rest of the money and you can even fligh planes that cost many millions of dollars (which, judging by the controls, is what that setup is simulating).

Mind you a Commercial Pilot License is “only” 1000 flight hours so you might get it for less than $100k depending on which country you do your training in and hence the cost per hour in the air (or, if you do like my Amateur Pilot Trainers in the UK and give lessons for the flight hours, which can be done with only an Amateur Pilot License) though you’ll get a lot of “special moments” with trainees at the controls (did I mention landings are exciting ;)).

BradleyUffner,

That’s just a mid-range setup. The real simmers have at least 3 monitors.

PilferJynx,

Man, at some point it might be cheaper to buy a plane.

citrusface,

Yeah but I won’t die in a sim rig unless that panel falls and crushes me to death

evranch,

Oh, the plane is cheap. Aviation fuel and maintenance are where they get you.

WoahWoah,

A plane. A cheap, 2-4 seat prop plane. A full sim rig can fly ANY PLANE and spaceships too!

I am not in any way a sim gamer of any of these sorts. My inputs are keyboard, mouse, or controller. And I suck at everything I play, and I try to limit my gaming time (and expenditures on gaming).

But I kind of get it, you know?

Abird1620, (edited )

But I feel like the sense of really flying and being able to go places would be far more rewarding. Even if it is just a prop plane.

milicent_bystandr,

You’re probably one of these people who likes to go outside instead of playing localcarsimulator 4000

TopRamenBinLaden,

A real plane would be most definitely satisfying in its own way, but Sim planes let you perform crazy maneuvers, fly places you wouldn’t be allowed to in real life, and fly aircraft that you would never even get a chance to see. Not to mention, the whole threat of death with real life flying.

Abird1620,

Really good points that you bring up. I can agree with you fully now. Especially on the point of being able to do crazy tricks at no threat to your own real safety.

intensely_human,

I would love to work on a project to build a thing that could reconfigure itself to match any existing cockpit. That would be sick. Maybe like a bunch of self-arranging robot building blocks and each has a different kind of switch or dial. Or each one can simulate it, hopefully in 3D with force feedback. They crawl into position and lock arms to form the cockpit. Send a command and the F-16 rearranges itself into an airbus 380. Or a corvette.

WoahWoah,

I see you dying in an accident testing the g-force simulator you built. 😁

intensely_human,

Do a Magneto and target the iron in people’s blood. A little electromagnetic field play, and suddenly your body “weighs” 8 times the normal amount.

That or manipulate the inner ear fluid somehow.

fidodo,

Monitors are probably the cheapest part of a flight sim setup too

Psythik,

Real simmers have a VR headset and one of those human gyroscope things that spins on 3 axes.

Benchamoneh,

You mean a head?

captainjaneway,
@captainjaneway@lemmy.world avatar

No a penis.

repungnant_canary, (edited )

Most people mention the costs of owning aircraft vs a sim, but there’s another possible reason: health. People come in different shapes and forms and not everyone who loves aviation is able to get II or even III medical class. So flight simulation is their only option to be a “pilot”.

I mean, on VATSIM (popular aviation simulation network) there’s a group of visually impaired people who have made a special interface so they can fly an aircraft even though they can’t see!

Simulation (of any kind) gives many people what they can’t get in any other way. And as with any other hobby, as long as it’s not damaging to other aspects of your life, let people enjoy what they want

Crackhappy,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

Wait, that’s super fucking cool. Do you have a link to the way they’re able to fly blind?

bane_killgrind,
Crackhappy,
@Crackhappy@lemmy.world avatar

Oh God damnit. You got me. I busted up laughing.

bane_killgrind,

I needed a giggle at work happy to do it.

But for real there’s a bunch of stuff. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TecHPonwJxQ

zenbhang,

To go along with this is also risk to one’s health and potentially death.

53 per 100,000 pilots was the death rate amongst pilots in 2018 according to The University of Delaware .

This doesn’t sound like a lot, until you consider it was the #2 most dangerous occupation in the US that year.

Behind #1 Loggers (111 per 100k) and ahead of Police Officers (14 per 100k).

So it’s one thing to have a flight sim rig and at worst fall off your chair. A whole another thing to potentially make a mistake in an actual plane and pay the price with your life.

ICastFist,
@ICastFist@programming.dev avatar

Adding a bit to that: you can do all sorts of stupid maneuvers in a simulation with zero consequence, like doing a barrel roll with an Airbus Beluga.

Plus, there are combat flight sims.

lorty,
@lorty@lemmy.ml avatar

Maybe I just want to try that obviously terrible approach to check if I’m right about my skills you know?

mac,
@mac@infosec.pub avatar

The one with all the wind on that god awful little mud hill?

Justas,
@Justas@sh.itjust.works avatar

Have to land that Harrier vertically on the side of a dam.

Kolanaki, (edited )
@Kolanaki@yiffit.net avatar

Some of those things for PC flight sims are straight up real cockpit pieces. Dude is simply buying his plane one bit at a time until he can assemble the whole thing.

I’ve installed Internet for a dude who had a setup this gnarly. And to top it all off, he lived on a piece of land attached to an aircraft museum. He really loves planes.

bufordt,
@bufordt@sh.itjust.works avatar

Building a plane one day at a time.

youtu.be/uErKI0zWgjg?si=1lzjtDY3qkK3lcKN

The_Picard_Maneuver,
@The_Picard_Maneuver@startrek.website avatar

Some people are so dedicated to their hobbies and I love seeing it.

An extended family member of mine hosted a reunion at his house years ago, and he apparently lived in a neighborhood where many people have small airplane hangars attached to their houses instead of a normal garage. It was nuts. You’re just walking through a normal-looking house in a normal-looking suburban neighborhood, go through what would otherwise be a garage door, and suddenly you’re in a big hangar.

db2,

All that hardware and then just… a chair.

AverageGoob,
@AverageGoob@lemmy.world avatar

Not to mention the Ikea table.

Venator,

They’re probably saving up to build a motion simulation rig.

Luci,
@Luci@lemmy.ca avatar

Yeah you ain’t gonna be buying a plane if you’re using the cheapest office chair you found at a thrift store.

Unless this is to help save up for said plane.

Let’s leave the chair out of this!

ramble81,

And only one monitor too. Would have expected 3-4 to give a better view.

RaoulDook,

VR headset would be best view but then they couldn’t see all the fancy controls around them.

ramble81,

Even better if they could do it with AR. Then they could blend the controls with the view.

agitatedpotato, (edited )

I love ar in flight sims, moving your head to move the camera view across the huge amount of instruments is so nice when youve got hands on the stick and throtle and both feet in the rudder pedals.

fmstrat,

Depends on the sim. A good example would be Elite Dangerous. Buy the right HOTUS, put it in the right place, and when you don the headset, you see the controls you have.

PapaStevesy,

Yes, because, as we all know, real pilots don’t use chairs…

TonyTonyChopper,
@TonyTonyChopper@mander.xyz avatar

They were making the point that it looks like a chair you would pick up for free on the side of the road as part of a multi thousand dollar flight sim

PapaStevesy,

They were making the point

That’s debatable.

Imgonnatrythis,

No neon trim and no cup holder even. Probably the kind of guy that wants to fight you if you call a flight Sim a game.

MystikIncarnate,

This is exactly what I was looking at. What the hell is with that?

Guy probably could have purchased an entire office worth of chairs with the money he spent on all that gear… He didn’t even bother to get one decent chair?

Landmammals,

That’s money he could have spent on more buttons and panels.

captain_aggravated,
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works avatar

Do you know how much it costs to annual a Cessna 172? You could build 3 of these rigs a year for what the aviation equivalent of a 1988 Toyota Camry costs to maintain and fuel.

bfg9k,
@bfg9k@lemmy.world avatar

This. A full sim rig still costs a lot less than an actual plane, plus it runs on electricity and not leaded petrol so it won’t send you loopy at 60.

Pyotr,

For what it’s worth, avgas is going lead free, and there’s already unleaded options.

Per the FAA

wizzor,

First time I got into one, this was my exact reaction: wtf this thing is like a 1980s corolla turned onto an aircraft. I was sure I’d get killed in that rickety pos.

NaoPb,

Pretty cool with the overhead and side panels.

Psythik,

Yeah but what percentage of them are actually functional? In MS Flight Sim half the buttons in the planes do nothing.

Donjuanme,

Half the buttons in a plane don’t do anything as long as everything is working. 90% of my numbers are made up on the spot

NigelFrobisher,

I’m doing the same with my work from home set-up. I even have a mannequin dressed up as a “boss” who hovers at my shoulder while I try to get stuff done .

db2,
Kase,

“boss” who hovers at my shoulder while I try to get stuff done

A cat would also work for this.

Zannsolo,

Should upgrade to a sex doll so you can rage fuck it when your boss pisses you off.

brlemworld,

Planes are expensive AF to maintain

wintermute_oregon,

After Gran Turismo came out, the local computer store put up a rig. It was over 7K. Holy crap.

I bet this cost more than that.

Frozengyro,

Imagine what a real car costs

Altofaltception,

New or used?

KillerTofu,

I just download my cars.

ZombiFrancis,

You wouldn’t!

CADmonkey,

I once bought a more or less running car for $50.

billiam0202,

For that price, I’m gonna go with “more running.” As in, “I’ve been doing more running because my car doesn’t work.”

CADmonkey,

It was able to get onto the trailer under it’s own power, and I drove it to work the following Monday… it needed a water pump to be “driveable” but I ended up doing a few other things to the car. It was an old Geo Metro and I wanted one to tinker with. I spent about $600 getting the car like I wanted it.

DaCookeyMonsta,

For $50 running is how you move it.

LemmyIsFantastic, (edited )

We’ve spent 45k over 3 years between 4 people racing a fucking Saturn station wagon. Vast majority in travel and maintaining the $500 car. Goes up from there homie lol

frezik,

Racing sims can get crazy. Full wrap around monitors, motion rigs, load cell pedals. You can buy all the same equipment that F1 racing teams use, provided you’re willing to drop six figures.

That said, there’s some top sim racers that have a Logitech wheel clamped to a desk.

wintermute_oregon,

I was shocked. I didn’t even know it was a thing.

FeelzGoodMan420, (edited )

deleted_by_author

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  • yurgenst,

    I can 100% promise this cost less than getting a pilots license, especially if you want to fly jets. Most people will pay over $10,000 just to get their private pilot license.

    CptEnder,

    Yeah and the $10,000 is just for single prop. ATPL costs like $70-100k so yeah like Yurgenst said, this setup is definitely cheaper.

    Also this isn’t the craziest setup I’ve seen. On Reddit years ago I saw a F-16 pilot recreate his entire cockpit complete with the FLIR displays and a real F-16 yoke but managed to make it collapsible. So he could stow it into a chest like thing that his wife approved of haha. He was like “I just really love my job, I want to keep doing it when I’m not working”.

    drivepiler,

    Not to mention you can pop a few beers and pull some crazy manoeuvres without the risk of death

    Anticorp,

    This person is probably a CFI, and simulator time is always cheaper than actual flight time. 25% of your flight time can be in a simulator when learning to fly.

    cryostars,

    Yep not to mention flying (renting a plane and paying for fuel is very expensive too)

    Anticorp,

    Fuel and maintenance are the big ones. I had a CFI who owned his own old Cessna 150 and would teach me for free. I just had to pay for gas and maintenance, and it was still almost $200 an hour. Aviation is expensive!

    sunbeam60, (edited )

    Yes but in certified simulators. That ain’t no certified simulator.

    Anticorp, (edited )

    I’ve seen certified simulators that are nothing more than a 27" monitor, a yoke, peddles, and a throttle control. That set-up looks better than any certified simulator that I’ve ever seen.

    sunbeam60,

    You are completely correct. Most certified simulators aren’t used for familiarisation training but basic manoeuvres. Buying a certified simulator is often extremely expensive and getting one you’ve built certified is insanely expensive and very, very complicated (which is why they often come as pre-assembled kits that flight schools can line up themselves).

    I would wager one of my children that this set up isn’t certified.

    Anticorp, (edited )

    I wouldn’t bet against you. This setup looks like it is for a jet, probably a commercial airliner. It seems unlikely that anyone is getting certified flight instructions for a 737 in some dude’s dining room.

    Wodge,
    @Wodge@lemmy.world avatar

    I get this attitude towards my sim racing. The amount of Bentlys I’ve smashed up would be worth billions, and my simrig isn’t even 1% of that.

    FigMcLargeHuge,

    There’s also the issue of medical. Someone might not be able to medically get a pilots license, but can pull up a chair. It might not have anything to do with money.

    brianorca,

    They might already have a pilot license. This setup costs way less per hour than actual flying. And it lets you try things that would be risky in a real plane. Or you can practice bad weather or equipment failures safely, so you can better handle a real situation if it occurs.

    Steve,

    Why so few monitors??

    cm0002,

    Lol first thing I thought of, 4/10, cool control panels, but not even a large curved display

    sunbeam60,

    Fuck curved display. You either build a dome or you have three large displays (TVs) arranged in a 270 degree square around you.

    Moose,
    @Moose@moose.best avatar

    I’m going to take a guess that this sim setup is mainly for IFR or instrument flying. I know some people that do virtual airline stuff and they follow real life as closely as they can, so after taking off its auto-pilot on and using instruments for navigation instead of visual landmarks.

    betterdeadthanreddit,

    The double-standard on display here is just disgusting. Sure, it’s perfectly fine to modify your home entertainment system into a fake airplane but I try a little remodeling to make work feel more like home and it’s all “security will escort you off the premises” and “we’re taking away your pilot’s license”. Boils my blood.

    cordlesslamp,

    I know, right?

    Modified your PC into a flight sim and no one bat an eye.

    Modified your cockpit into a gaming rig and everyone losses their mind.

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