One Airdrie man is literally taking his passion to new heights by building a close to scale flight simulator in his basement.

John Boccabella, a full time EMT and father of three, started building the replica flight deck a few months ago and bit by bit, it's coming together.

Why work on such a massive project? "I've always been kind of an aviation nerd," says Boccabella. "It's always been something I've just loved and flying has always been something I wanted to do... earlier this year, the inspiration was right and I thought, 'hey, I'm gonna start it.'"

In order to cut costs, John is using mostly used and recycled material from friends and family to build the flight deck.

Once completed, the simulator will resemble a Boeing 737-800 cockpit, complete with the windows, switchboards and even the view. Three projectors will show the view from the cockpit as laid out by a version of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

John has shown his progress on a Facebook page 'The Airdrie 737 Project', and the response has been outstanding.

"It's been cool to chat with folks from kinda all over the world who have been following the project... all the way to just right here in Airdrie, there's folks that have come across it."

John is hoping to help other flight enthusiasts in building their own simulator and even has dreams to share the project with the Children's Hospital.

One of the many questions John is asked is how he balances family life, work and his hobby.

He says that he finds little times here and there, but sometimes the family gets involved.

"Family obviously comes first, the kids even love it too. They like to come down and even before a lot of this was painted, they were down here drawing."

What's the timeline for completing the simulator? "There's not really a deadline or timeline or anything like that. Just kinda work at it when I can, the sooner it gets done, the better, but hey, no rush."