We Bought A Flight Simulator

Reviving a dusty flight sim raises an interesting question: Now what?

The phone buzzed in my pocket as we sat for lunch at PDK Airport’s Downwind Bar and Grill. It’s arguably one of the very best airport restaurants around - it ain’t pretentious. Has a view. And it’s 12 minutes from the house so it’s where I meet most of my buddies when we want to rally up for lunch.

A few pictures popped into my messenger app. My friend who runs some estate sales asked, “You interested in this?” She threw a price out there that was absurdly low.

It was a Redbird TD2 simulator, a pretty snazzy setup that flight schools can use for a chunk of flight training. A new one ain’t cheap.

For that price? I didn’t blink. “YUP.”

She must have realized that it was significantly undervalued at that price given my immediate response, and I wasn’t mad when she came back with a higher price. In what might be the most awkward and odd of auctions, the price kept going up until we hit a comfortable place for both of us. Her interest, obviously, was getting some coin for the estate, and mine was getting a bargain on a flight simulator that doesn’t just fall into ones’ lap daily.

Matt Russell, seated across the table from me for lunch, went halves.

Matt and I were just about to learn that computers don’t appreciate being rattled out of a 10-year nap

Flying airplanes around on computer simulations is nothing new to me - I grew up with Microsoft Flight Simulator as it transitioned to the Windows platform in the 90’s, and followed that franchise through the turn of the millennium, even as I transitioned into the world of flying airplanes that don’t just reset after hitting solid objects. I built a flight simulator that mimicked our airshow planes, and drove it from show to show, letting kids jump in and take the planes for a spin - or a loop and a roll, with about three minutes’ fuel on board to let them have fun before a forced landing to signal it was the next kid’s turn.

As a professional pilot, I’ve sweated bullets in flight simulators for the jets, where engine fires, electrical issues, and decompressions can couple with gnarly weather to make you forget that you’re in a hydraulically-flung box at the training center.

Meanwhile, I haven’t owned a flight sim setup in ages. I tried to buy a mini-PC and hook it to the TV for that purpose, but the thing just couldn’t handle the software. I’ve “flown” Redbird products a couple times at Oshkosh and Sun N’ Fun over the years, and marveled at the training value they created, while avoiding the costs that come along with the airline-level flight simulators.

When I went to pick the TD2 up, I winced when I saw the tag on the back of the thing. It was built in 2012. But I’d already forked the money over, so we were committed. Cramming the thing into my pickup, I headed north and hoped for the best.

Having a partner to share the risk in these sorts of things is fantastic. Having a partner with space to park these sorts of things is priceless, and being able to unload this thing in Matt’s driveway instead of mine absolutely made my day.

We managed to put the big pieces of Humpty-Dumpty back together to the state it’d sat when I first saw it - with all the cables balled up in a box to the side. We began to untangle the mass of cords, cables, dongles, adapters and plugs… then we just started plugging things into places where they looked like they’d fit, until we ran out of pieces and plugged in the surge strip.

The power button glowed. The screens flickered up some logos for a moment. Matt mashed the power button and we got a windows boot screen on the center display… and it stayed there, for what felt like ages.

By the time I had to leave, the system hadn’t fully booted. Later that day, Matt texted me a photo. It had booted into the sim program and was flying, technically… but very slowly.

After running all sorts of diagnostics and a bunch of reboots, the machine limbered up. The next morning, on my way to work, I stopped off at Matt’s. I shot a couple of ILS approaches at Huntsville, then looped and rolled the thing before heading to work.

As Matt tinkered with all the bits and pieces, it really came alive. Even the iPad link to synchronize Foreflight to the simulator works!

Matt’s working on his flight instructor certificate. I’m debating doing the same. With some modest updates, we could have the simulator at a point where it would again be legal to use for simulated instrument training, or for instrument-rated pilots to retain their currency. If we can get some use out of it and then flip it, great.

Or we could start a flight school.

Nope. I didn’t say that out loud.

See you next week.