The majestic 747-400 named also “The Giant of the Sky” is up to now the biggest transport  passengers air carrier .

 

Its majesty make it a dam of engineering masterpiece, even though, it is having largest dimensions, it is appearing in a magnificent slimness and lightness in spite its high weight of 395 MT at the take off.

 

My great passion to fly the aircrafts, took me to fly the double engines Cessna aircraft, but the desire to  be seated in a 747-400 flight deck is still great, and up to now unrealized due to the matter that it is not so easy to hire a Jumbo jet for a personal flight training.

 

In the past, when Alitalia was hiring the planes from “Ansett” an Australian air carrier company, very often I had flown with them, and during the flights from Dubai to Italy and vice versa, I was allowed to seating into the cockpit.

This facility allowed me to discuss with pilots about the ways of flying the big jets, to have the knowledge with the cockpit instruments, hardware and flight management controls.

 

In order to have a better knowledge of the 747-400 plane, I’ve got some instruction manuals books which have taken me  in the position to knowing the plane so well, therefore, enabling me to fly it too.

 

But being it not possible to have the chance for flying it due to the reasons as above mentioned, I did start two years ago, to build up a real flight simulator cockpit, which today it is at a good stage, as the photos in the gallery are shown.

 

The job is complicated as it involves the building of a simulator having real characteristics, and being it so, its realization requires long time.

 

To realize this cockpit and to save money as much as possible, the builder has to have good knowledge on processing metals and woods, and to be good enough on doing by himself.

 

In fact, he has to knowing how to processing materials as wood and metals, to know a lot on electronic and electrics connections and wiring, and as a last important matter, to have good confidence with informatics procedures.

 

The simulator, beside to be built itself, to make it as much as possible closer to reality, it requires to be run by many computers, and, as most of the software which are running the simulators are not available on the market, they are to be written properly by the builder.

 

On this I’ve to spend a great recognizing  to my good friend Ettore Mele  giving to him a great thanks, as he did write all the EPIC software which allows the simulator running matching the reality, from its staring as a cool and dark cockpit, up to the routes set into FMC, radios settings, all exactly executing as in a real 747-400 plane flight deck.

 

By clicking on the gallery button you’ll be introduced to the same, where some photos are showing my  cockpit stage.

 

To any one who could be interested in some information, please contact me at:

ctlica@tin.it