FT, I've been out of the sim business for a long time now. I want to correct one thing I said earlier, "we" did not do the mainframe upgrade on the South African sim, another group did that upgrade while "we" were installing the Evans and Sutherland system. The memory fades a little after 20 years.
The flight instruments in the sim are normally the same as the ones used in the aircraft. If the instruments are still available for the aircraft, they should be available for the sim. The price for an overhauled instrument should be about the same as one for the aircraft.
One thing I never understood during my time working on sims (my time was mostly in the visuals area), was how the simulator manipulated the air pressure dependent flight instruments. Were there sim mounted air pressure systems (used on those instruments) that were controlled by the mainframe, or were those particular instruments modified to be driven by electrical signals? I seem to remember that those particular instruments were electrically modified, but I could be wrong.
[This message has been edited by Flight Safety (edited 06 February 2001).]