Laurent Aigon really likes airplanes. He grew up living almost 700 feet away from an airport and playing Flight Simulator constantly, but somehow his obsession never amounted to anything — until he decided to build an exact replica of an airplane cockpit in his home, just inches from his son’s bed. Seriously, in your kid’s room? You can’t do that on the balcony, buddy?
Together with friend and fellow airplane fan Jean-Paul Dupuy, Aigon met with the Aquitaine Simulation and created the most authentic simulation of a Boeing 737 cockpit that they could manage. This involved spending thousands of euros securing parts from around the world and having them flown — the irony of that! — to his home in Lacanau, France.
Obviously the cockpit doesn’t really work because you need more than just fancy lights and knobs to make a thing fly, but Aigon’s taught himself how to work the controls anyway and now considers himself an expert in the art of plane simulation. He’s even considering going into the field of simulation building to create future training programs for pilots.
There’s video of the cockpit, too, of course. It’s in French, but let’s be honest, you don’t need to know what they’re talking about. Shiny plane buttons!
While I applaud Aigon for realizing his dream in some capacity, I can’t help but wonder what’s going to happen to that kid who’s now sharing his room with the inside of an airplane. Speaking purely in stereotypes, little boys do like planes, so it’s entirely possible that he thinks he’s got the best dad in the universe right now — but what’s it gonna be like when he’s a teenager? The kid’s going to grow up resenting planes forever, you mark my words.
(via Oddity Central, featured image via Airplane!)
- What, French people don’t have garages like this guy does?
- There’s also this guy who made a plane into a car
- Meanwhile, also in France, there are gangs of wild feral cats
