【こぼれ話】空への夢、今も…７６歳男性がフライトシミュレーター自作　ヨルダン

【アンマンＡＦＰ＝時事】ヨルダン人のムハンマド・マルハスさん（７６）は長年、大型旅客機の操縦士になることを夢見てきた。今は、自宅の地下室に作ったコックピットの中から雲の上の旅を楽しんでいる。（写真はヨルダンの首都アンマンの自宅で、ボーイング機のコックピットに模した自作のフライトシミュレーターを操作するムハンマド・マルハスさん）
　地下室にあるのは、ボーイング７３７－８００型機のコックピットに模したフライトシミュレーターだ。友人の手を借りながら、廃品や中古品を使って自作した。
　「私の心はいつも空にありました。操縦士になるのが夢でしたが、いろいろな事情でかなわなかったのです」とマルハスさんはＡＦＰに話した。
　１９７８年には小型飛行機のライセンスを取得したが、熱は一向に冷めなかった。飛行用のソフトウエアを自分のコンピューターにダウンロードし、以前はよく世界中のフライトシミュレーター愛好家と一緒に中東から英国や米国までバーチャルの空を飛んでいたと話す。
　自作のコックピットには３台の大型スクリーンと、さまざまなスイッチやインジケーターが備え付けられている。ここに座れば、マルハスさんは指先の操作で世界中どこにでも飛んで行ける。
　部品はすべて地元の市場で購入した。コックピットの椅子は、もともとはバスの座席だった。スクリーンの上には雲や空、下には川や森、砂漠の画像が映し出されている。外の天気も自分で選ぶことができる。
　エンジニアの友人に手伝ってもらいながら、３年がかりで制作した。費用は約６０００ディナール（約９６万円）かかった。
　時には妻と一緒にコックピットに座ることもある。
　「家にいながら空を飛び、世界中を飛び回る喜びが味わえるのは素晴らしいことだと思います」とマルハスさんは話した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】

〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/12/06-13:17）

Jordanian Muhammad Malhas has long harboured dreams of being a pilot. Now at 76 years old, he's soaring above the clouds in a cockpit he built in his basement.
Since the beginning of time, man has been watching the birds in the sky, and dreaming of flying freely, Malhas told AFP.
As a boy, he enjoying flying his kite and wondering how something so flimsy made of paper could soar so high.
It was then the desire and love of flying began to obsess me, he added, sitting in the flight simulator, a replica of the cockpit of a Boeing 737-800, which he has spent three years building from scrap and secondhand items.
My heart was always hanging in the sky, and my dream was to become a pilot, but circumstances did not allow it, he said.
He graduated in hospital management from a London university in 1969, and went to work with his father at the Amman hospital the family had founded.
But Malhas kept his dreams alive, devouring books on aviation, aircraft engineering and guides to learning how to fly.
He even joined the Royal Jordanian Air Academy in 1976, rising before dawn to take flying lessons in a small Piper aircraft, before heading to work. He obtained his licence two years later.
For almost a decade he was a member of the Jordanian Gliding Club, taking to the skies every weekend.
And by 2006, he was flying virtually thanks to flight software he downloaded on his computer.
He joined a global network of flight simulator fans, where they could fly in almost real conditions directed by an air traffic controller.
We were a group of about 30 to 40 friends, aviation enthusiasts from different countries chatting about flying virtually in our spare time.
We used to fly to Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad... even Britain and the US. Sometimes we sat for six hours on computers as if we were flying real flights, he told AFP.
- The joy of flying -
Now retired, his life-long passion has taken a new spin.
Sat in front of three large screens, equipped with switches and indicators, in his homemade cockpit, Malhas has the world at his fingertips.
All the parts were bought at local markets. The chairs were originally part of a bus.
The screens show pictures of clouds and sky above, rivers, forests and deserts below. He can even choose what the weather outside is like.
The work took three years, with the help of friends who are electronic engineers. And it cost around six thousand dinars ($8,400).
His friend Ahmed Fares, 25, helped installing switches and indicators which respond to the conditions of the plane, so that it looks like a real plane flying.
Sometimes his wife joins Malhas in the cockpit.
I think it is amazing to fly while sitting at home and to feel the joy of flying around the world, he said.