How to build a 747 – A WorldFlight Story

A team of flight simulation enthusiasts is building a physical Boeing 747-200 cockpit simulator from scratch using a real decommissioned aircraft cockpit (MSN23640). The project involves reverse-engineering thousands of wires, designing custom PCBs, and interfacing original aircraft components with X-Plane flight simulator software. The team will use their creation to participate in WorldFlight 2025, a week-long charity event where teams fly around the world virtually on the VATSIM network. The build showcases extensive hardware integration, including custom electronics using Arduino/Raspberry Pi, signal processing for analog instruments, and dataref mapping to connect physical controls with the simulation.