Dad who wanted to be a pilot builds incredible simulator - in his spare room

Credit: SWNS / Craig Cullingworth

A dad who was told he "wasn't clever enough" to be a pilot has built an incredible £25,000 flight simulator - in his spare room.

Craig Cullingworth, 40, spent two years building his accurate model of a Boeing 737-800NG cockpit with mostly second-hand parts he sourced online.

And using a computer program, he now takes to the skies with his "obsessed" daughter, Sophie, eight, from the comfort of their home in Leeds, West Yorkshire.

The car painter's plan to create the replica came after his wife, Sarah, 38, got him a simulator experience at a local flight centre as a Christmas present.

He then bought a cockpit shell - with all the dials and levers found on the real twin-engine aircraft - and painstinkally turned it into a fully working model.