Welcome!
Welcome to my737sim. This site documents my experiences building my full-scale 737-800 NG cockpit.
I have initially started building a Cessna 172 flight simulator to support me during my private pilot license training and soon discovered 737 flight simulator builds on Youtube. I got hooked!
Building a full-scale 737 cockpit is no easy task, and do not let anybody tell you it is. It requires MANY hours of reading, planning, designing, 3D printing, CNC machining, woodwork, welding, electronics, software development and software configuration. Although there are easier ways to build a cockpit (like buying components from the multitude of flight simulator parts vendors on the net – these have become extremely expensive, not to talk about having to ship components to countries outside of the manufacturer’s country), the challenge really is in manufacturing each and every piece (except electronics components of course) of the cockpit using materials that can be bought at your local hardware store. And just a note – money will flow…
Another point to mention…if you need some tools and these are either too expensive or not available in your country, you might just end up building your own. I ended up building 2 CNC machines to support me during my build process, the first one learning about CNC, electronics (refreshing on my university electronics skills) and programming Arduino boards, the second doing it better and improving the capability of the machine and being able to manufacture bigger panels and components.
Hopefully this site will give you guidance on how to build your own 737 simulator over time. I have referenced multiple sites during my learning and build process and have created a reference table to acknowledge their contribution in my build process. These sites contain a lot of learning and how-to’s, however I am trying to provide a view of what I have learned during the build process and hopefully a more complete view of the total build on one site.
If you are building your own 737 simulator, all the best of luck, you will need it.
Stephan Viljoen – South Africa