There are some old military simulators around. Smithsonian Air and Space Museum has at least 1 F100 or F101 cockpit procedures trainer and a Grumman F9F Panther simulator. The old trainers like the Panther owned by the U.S. Navy were almost all trailer mounted so they could be moved. I had the dubious pleasure of moving the A3D Weapon System Trainer (Navy device 2F21,I think) from NAS Alameda CA to NAS Norfolk VA in the early 1980s. It was sixties technology with one trailer for the cockpit and another for the computer and instructor's station. The computer was an analog machine running with vacum tubes. I figured it wouldn't make it and we would need to be at Norfolk with a broom and dustpan to clean up broken glass. But it made it cross country just fine and after finding enough electricity to run it it turned on just fine. Big problem was finding parts and also the amount and special skilled labor it took to keep everything in adjustment.
Believe many airlines sell the trainers when they no longer have use for them, so things tend to move "down" the food chain just like aircraft tend to do. Got to look at U.S. Air's training center at PIT a number of years ago. They were just getting out of the BAC 111 business but had a whole FAA certified training setup with sims and all and training the people they were selling the aircraft to, as well as anyone else that needed a real FAA type rating course. AT the time they expected they would in the business of training years after they sold the aircraft. At some point they become uneconomical or not useful and probably go for "10 cents a pound" as scrap.
A fairly modern simulator without a motion system (which makes the housing and care and feeding a lot more complicated), especially simulating a glass cockpit, should be relatively straightforward to maintain and operate, though the big problem is still analog/digital digital/analog converters. As far a obtaining and maintaining certification standards I doubt it would be feasible for private individuals, but it would make a great toy for the Flight Simulator crowd.
For Flight Safety: The pitot/static driven instruments in sims are indeed modified (or actually just cosmetic copies with no actual airplane parts at all) and use a DC servomotor interfaced through a D to A converter for the computer to drive. That is the easy part, the hard one is what algorithm s you use to simulate the real aircraft.
FUN QUIZ QUESTION: You are simulating a Beachcraft King Air 90. You must simulate loss of one engine's oil pressure. Question: (1)What instruments/lights/etc do you need to connect to and (2) what logic do you use. ANSWER NEXT WEEK.
[This message has been edited by RATBOY (edited 07 February 2001).]