Ambitious enthusiasts buy entire Boeing 747 cockpit in race to build flight simulator — three-month project recreates gauges, dials, and other mechanical instruments for X-Plane sim

A group of flight sim enthusiasts is building a complete sim rig in their garage using the cockpit of an old 747 jumbo jet. The Jurassic Jets Team, whose members’ backgrounds range from construction, engineering, and aviation, bought the cockpit of an old, decommissioned Boeing 747-300, and they used it as a base to construct an authentic flight simulator for X-Plane. What makes the project more challenging is that the 747-300 cockpit is fully analog, with gauges, dials, and other mechanical…