Oculus Rift has never been put to better use.
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Aidan Fay has been obsessed with flying ever since he laid eyes on Microsoft Flight Simulator as an eight-year-old. But while the 17-year-old from La Jolla, CA, has completed initial ground school training and takes flying lessons with an instructor, the FAA barred him from flying solo because of a medical condition.
So Fay did the next best thing: He built his own cockpit using virtual reality. Fay spent 200 hours designing and constructing this DIY Cessna 172 simulator. And he saved his pennies to buy an Oculus Rift headset so he can virtually fly the skies of San Diego.
The life-sized simulator uses real airplane rudder pedals that Fay found on eBay, as well as an authentic steering yoke that he connected to motor gears to create resistance according to his simulated speed, altitude, and weather conditions. The control panel is made from MDF and acrylic, and Fay wired all the switches into circuit boards himself. He used Arduino microcontrollers and old joysticks to make his simulator as realistic as possible.
We need one of these for the office, stat.
