The homebuilder cockpit community is an exciting and welcoming place for both newcomers and experienced builders.
The Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 are by far the most popular projects, but homebuilders have built hundreds of different flight decks of varying levels of complexity and realism.
One of my favorite groups is SimFest (http://www.simfest.co.uk/). They fly a 747 (homebuilt sim) around the world, stream it live, and raise money for charity.
For anyone interested in learning more, a few resources:
ProSim Aviation Research (https://prosim-ar.com/) - cockpit avionics software. Powers flight models and avionics screens for most 737 and A320 projects. Established, respected, and popular in the community.
FlightDeck Solutions (http://flightdecksolutions.com/) - Flight deck hardware. Both individual components and turn key solutions for 737/777/787/A320
Because this way you get to fly a 737/747/777/whatever you feel like.
For a lot of simmers, the driver behind their passion is the desire to fly one of those heavy jets. I have a PPL, but unless I committed about a decade for it as a career, there's simply no way I could ever find myself behind the cockpit of an airliner. Simming is the only way. You do see people make cockpits for smaller aircraft, but it is definitely the exception, and usually those people do have licenses and use it for flight training.
Also, you can find airline-quality simulators out there who will gladly rent you some time, but last time I checked the full-motion 777 simulator I had available to me cost $750/hr.
Boeing certainly tests in public airspace, but only as part of a standardized certification process overseen by the US government - a process and set of regulations that are written in blood.
Eh, yes and no. The FAA requires operators to get approval for iPad EFBs individually, and does not require GA pilots to do any such thing. "Certified," however, has a special meaning in aviation. iPads are not certified hardware, period. Pilots must still use their aircraft avionics (which are certified) as their primary means of navigation. iPads can be supplemental only, for both general aviation and commercial operations.
The flight plan is programmed into the airplane's avionics, as well as on a printed hard copy in the cockpit. The app is supplemental. It can not be used as a primary navigation reference, per FAA regulations.
I've also been using the Dopp Regatta, exclusively for about 6 years now, and I love it. Super simple, extremely functional. It's the closest to perfect I've found.
Is that bad though? I'm guessing there are at least hundreds of thousands of helicopter flights in New York annually. ~1 accident per year doesn't sound very dangerous to me.
As for the concept, it's Uber for helicopters. As long as there is a need (I don't and would never live in New York so I have no idea what the demand for this is) then it may very well be successful.
It's hard to compare cars and helicopters. From the article:
"Between 2005 and 2009, there was an annual average of 1.44 fatalities (PDF) per 100,000 flying hours in nonmilitary helicopters. Over the same period, there were 13.2 traffic fatalities per 100,000 population in the United States annually. Since the average American spends around 780 hours per year (PDF) in the car, that means the fatality rate per 100,000 hours of driving time is just 0.017. Based on hours alone, helicopters are 85 times more dangerous than driving."
Assume you used such a service (roundtrip) once per month, and it saved you 40 hours per year.
The annual risk of dying in the helo crash (taking the numbers from above) is 12 minutes flying RT * 12 RT/year = 144 minutes per year / 60 mins/hr * 1.44/100K or a risk of dying of 3.456 per 100K years. (overstated as the figure is fatalities per 100K hours, not fatal accidents per 100K).
The annual risk of dying in a car crash if you took that instead is 240 minutes * 12 RT/yr / 60 mins/hr * 0.017 = 0.816 per 100K years.
Over 50 years, your life expectancy has been shortened by about 12 hours. (This is the math I'm least sure about.)
Over that same 50 years, the helo has saved you 2000 hours of your life, for a net addition of almost months of life (assuming, as I do, you derive no value from the car ride to the airport).
Said differently, each roundtrip saves you about 3 hours of your life, plus gives you a fantastic view of the city on the way...
> an annual average of 1.44 fatalities (PDF) per 100,000 flying hours in nonmilitary helicopters.
Big question here of what's being measured. If this includes search and rescue helicopters, fire fighting, weather, and similar, then it's not at all comparable to routine transportation driving.
The article talks about some of the difficulties. FWIW, i think ambulance accident rates are about 4 times more than routine driving. So more like 20x more dangerous to fly.
There's also a bunch of complexity about what happens to helicopter safety rates when that kind of flying becomes routine. Maybe it'll get way safer, because there are so many less risky flights, maybe it'll get more dangerous because pilots get complacent.
fwiw, i walk to work, so i hardly drive at all. If i was in a situation that i could take the flight, i'd take the flight.
An anecdotal source this - but a family friend of ours is a senior pilot for a well known international airline and a former air-force pilot. He also owns and fly's a microlight in his spare time.
Recently my father took a helicopter flight and when this family friend heard about it he was absolutely livid at my father for risking his life and made my father swear to never fly a helicopter again.
>Recently my father took a helicopter flight and when this family friend heard about it he was absolutely livid at my father for risking his life and made my father swear to never fly a helicopter again.
Could just mean that pilots can be irrational too.
The Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 are by far the most popular projects, but homebuilders have built hundreds of different flight decks of varying levels of complexity and realism.
One of my favorite groups is SimFest (http://www.simfest.co.uk/). They fly a 747 (homebuilt sim) around the world, stream it live, and raise money for charity.
For anyone interested in learning more, a few resources:
ProSim Aviation Research (https://prosim-ar.com/) - cockpit avionics software. Powers flight models and avionics screens for most 737 and A320 projects. Established, respected, and popular in the community.
FlightDeck Solutions (http://flightdecksolutions.com/) - Flight deck hardware. Both individual components and turn key solutions for 737/777/787/A320
Vier Im Pott (https://www.vier-im-pott.com/index.php/en/) - Flight deck hardware, A320 focused.
There are numerous other hardware manufacturers and software developers. A few good communities to check out if you're interested in learning more:
http://www.cockpitbuilders.com/ https://www.avsim.com/forums/forum/110-home-cockpit-builders...