It is well-known that one of the pilots of the missing Malaysia Air 777 had an elaborate flight-simulator at his house. I found a picture of it and thought I would try to figure out what hardware and software he had from the images. The image above came up again and again, so I started there.
It's an incredible setup. From examining the above image you can see he has three huge (27"?) Panasonic screens that appear to be touch-capable (although why he would need that I don't know) and running Microsoft's Flight Simulator, along with a console, also from Microsoft Flight Simulator, on the smaller bottom-center monitor and a control panel being displayed on what I assume is also a touch-screen monitor that you can barely see at the top-right of the picture. He's using this Saitek flight yoke at the bottom of the image with the green display (the blue-tipped lever to its right is part of it) and what I'm pretty confident is a Saitek Cybork Evo flight-sim joystick in the lower left corner. I also see a standard Microsoft optical mouse and keyboard.
I found this collage of images indicating the hardware he used in the PC controlling it all:
He loved Asus! I can see a Rampage IV motherboard that can handle the latest-gen Intel Core i7 processors, not one but TWO HD7970 video cards which run on the Raedon Graphics Processing Unit from AMD so he must have been planning to run them in parallel (known as Scalable Link Interface, or SLI), but I wouldn't have used Raedon-based cards for that; I would have used GeForce cards instead, especially because they pioneered the technology as can be seen in the SLI link. On the other hand, he may be using one to power the main displays, and the other to power the two control consoles. I also see a SilverStone Strider Gold 1000W power supply, which is a beast of a cooling mechanism, way more than a regular PC would need, however no liquid cooling as far as I can tell, nor can I see any indication of RAM.
Even with all of this, it is not - in my opinion - cause for alarm, many flight enthusiasts do something similar. Don't believe it? Check out the home flight simulator this guy built! There is also some really advanced cockpit-simulator software out there. Aviation enthusiasts don't screw around. The files he allegedly deleted cause me some concern, but I'll wait until there is more information.
This whole situation with this missing plane is really a mystery. The flight simulator set-up shown in the pictures I too don't think are any cause for alarm. People, especially men are certainly into their toys reflecting whatever interests them. Deleting files is more concerning. Also, can they determine a flight simulator history? That may be enlightening depending on certain scenarios he may have been focused on. It's all very strange and I hope for the sake of the families we get answers soon! More importantly, I also hope this pilot didn't play a part in the possible demise of his plane.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I don’t understand exactly what you described, it’s very interesting how you could identify the set-up by just viewing an image. I agree, I am not alarmed that he has this type of set up in his home. People that enjoy a specific hobby and simulators are available, most likely will obtain/create one, or have a game at least to replicate the activity. My boss, who was in the Air Force, had a mini flight-simulator set up in his home several years ago. After he stopped flying, he used this to entertain himself. I definitely agree that there needs to be more information released. It needs to come out quick, so people can start getting some closure.
ReplyDeleteThis was one enthusiastic pilot if he had such a flight simulator setup inside of his own house, but I as well don't think this sets an alarm as to the missing airplane. In a fact that I didn't know about the pilot was that he deleted files from the computer before the flight, and I think that is more concerning than him having the flight simulator in his house. I agree with Nichole, if they are able to track the history of the flight simulator and see what he was actually doing on it could potentially answer a number of questions regarding this ghost plane.
ReplyDeleteWhen I read through the blog of the guy who built the simulator, I picked up on a few key words: hobby, simulator enthusiast, and flyer and fly are frequently in quotations. So basically for them this is more of a hobby and that they aren't real life pilots. Perhaps they have never really even flown a real plane. The fact that the Malaysian Airline pilot had one in his home is a little disturbing to me; either you really love your job or you're up to something.
ReplyDeleteSomeone who flies on a frequent basis, someone who has hands on experience and access to a real life aircraft; it just doesn't make sense that he'd be a "simulator enthusiast" as well. They will definitely need to dig into the data and figure out what he was doing on it. Time will tell.
I'm going to have to agree with Leslie it is very interesting and surprising how you could identify his setup by just looking, simply amazing. When I had heard on the news that one of the pilots had a flight simulator I wasn't concerned at it and knew that there are some pretty amazing setups out there. However, I did not like how the media had worded it out on the news. They made it seem like he had a super crazy set up and was up to no good, but only time will tell if he was up to something. That setup you linked is pretty awesome, and one of many true enthusiasts.
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