"Where shall we fly today, son?"
"How about Sydney?"
"OK. Strap yourself in. And don't crash the plane like you did yesterday, alright?"
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This might be the typical evening conversation in the Aigon household. For Laurent Aigon, from Lacanau, France, has just spent the last five years building something few other dads have done: a 737 cockpit simulator, which he's placed in his son's bedroom.
I am grateful to Gizmodo and its use of Google Translate for discovering this lovely story from the French publication Sud-Ouest.
At the very least, you might imagine that Aigon is a pilot, or perhaps an engineer.
He's actually a waiter, who simply dreamed of being a pilot. He admits, though, that he was lazy at school.
His methods in creating this simulator were painstaking. He ordered the parts online and simply never wavered in achieving his goal.
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Thankfully, he didn't have to build entirely alone. As Oddity Central reports, he had a fellow dreamer, Jean-Paul Dupuy, along for the ride.
It's an achievement that he managed to squeeze the simulator in between his son's bed and closet.
In all the reporting on his story, there is no mention of how his son reacted when he learned of dad's celestial plan. Which might lead some to conclude this was a project as much (if not more) for dad than for his offspring.
One can only imagine the personal disruption this might have caused in the bedroom.
The result, though, has been not merely a (presumably) entertained son, but a new career for dad.
He's not the first dad, though, to have had such grandiose imaginings. Earlier this year, computer technician Daniel Sherrouse built his young son a spaceship simulator, because, well, everyone will have to live up there soon.
Aigon, though, is now getting accolades for his work. He received an invitation to lecture at the Institute of Aircraft Maintenance at Bordeaux-Merignac. He also hopes now to make simulator-construction his new career.
The tips might not be so good, but the prospects are surely better.
