Man from RAF family builds Boeing 737 simulator in shed
AN ENGINEER quit his job and spent £100,000 building three aircraft simulators in his back garden shed so he could emulate his RAF pilot father.
Kenneth Mockford, 53, used all his spare time building two Boeing 737 and Lynx helicopter cockpits in a hobby that brought him closer to his father.
Mr Mockford comes from a line of RAF servicemen, including a Victoria Cross winner, and he served in the South African air force. He created the three working simulators in his shed, building them with parts from cockpits he has bought from around the world. The parts he could not find he built using a machine similar to a 3D printer.
His father Ray, uncle Stanley Mockford, grandfather Arthur, and great-uncle Derf Mockford all served in the RAF.
Mr Mockford said: “My dad mainly inspired me when I first got involved in cockpits many many years ago. We started mucking about with flight simulators then we tried to make little cockpits and, over the years, it progressed. We started out with a little box and eventually it got bigger and bigger and I said I’m going the whole hog and making a full Boeing 737.”
Mr Mockford, a grandfather of one, quit his job as head of engineering at Baxter Healthcare UK after he and his father decided to turn their shed hobby into a flight simulator business in 2014.
Father and son built more than a dozen simulators in the 30ft by 16ft wooden shed. But 77-year-old Ray died 10 days before he was due to move to open the business, Sim2do, to the public in Mildenhall, Suffolk, last August.
Mr Mockford said: “He would usually sit around and tell me what I’m doing wrong and I was doing it all. Now his dog follows me everywhere. It’s a reminder of him and every now and then he sits next to me and says, ‘What are you doing’?”