Greetings from Washington, DC

Hello fellow sim fans!

I've been lurking for a few months and I figure it's time to introduce myself now that I've made my first purchases of used B737 parts on eBay.

I don't know how I got obsessed with this, but my goal is to make a fixed-base B737-NG sim in my apartment. I have a room that is just barely big enough to hold a full sized cockpit.

I'm lucky in that I get to fly real airplanes for fun. I have about 1300 hours, and I just finished my instructor ratings, CFI/CFII/MEI. Most of my time is in the Piper Archer and the Cirrus SR22, but I also have some time in the Aerostar, BE55, BE58P and DA42. I just got back from the Sun-N-Fun airshow in Florida and I go to Oshkosh every year.

My dream to become a military pilot ended at age 7 when I got my first pair of eyeglasses. Now I have a regular job to pay for airplanes.

A few years ago I published a few software titles for the Palm handheld, coded in C, so I have some rudimentary coding skills. So I'm tempted to build my sim from scratch and do all the coding, but I'm also tempted by all the off-the-shelf solutions offered by great vendors like FDS, Engravity, Poldragonet, CockpitSonic and PM. The new trend in homebuilt aircraft is paying more for a 'quick-build' kit in order to save time and frustration, and I think I will take this approach with my sim.

If there are any sim builders in the DC area, I'd be interested in seeing your pits. I can trade sim time for time in a real airplane, although you may find the performance in mine a bit of a letdown after cruising at 500 knots!

Thanks to all of you who make this site such a great resource!

Peter

Welcome aboard Peter. You're in the right place.... yep, with the rest of us flight-sim building nuts :) :)

I look forward toward seeing pics of your progress... and if you need help. We're all here to help :)

Hello FS drivers,

This is my first post here, no doubt this website is a gold mine for FS enthusiasts. I am in the process of building a 737NG simulator (finally) after so many years of flying around with MSFS (FS 5.0 to present) and some talking to the wife to take a small area of the house for the project. Currently living in Maryland and always trying to find extra time to get the project going. It is a pleasure to share the beauty of aviation with you in this fabulous website. Peter, welcome aboard it is good to know that a fellow 737 driver is in the area. I will be posting a pic or two of my sim (Odyssey NG)progress later on.

Thank you and good day,
Pedro.

Project name: ODYSSEY NG