Ben Apfelbaum

SYDNEY FLIGHT SIMULATOR IN THE CENTRE OF SYDNEY IN OF ALL PLACES AN EZYMART STORE

 

One of Sydney’s best kept secrets is hidden in of all places an EzyMart convenience store in the CBD at 251 Elizabeth Street, between Liverpool and Bathurst street

The first clue that something  is different is that you are greeted by the Manager of the store who is  dressed in a pilot’s uniform. Your eyes then wonder in amazement and surprise to a full scale mockup of an Airbus A30 cockpit. 

The pilot is Achmed Abdelwhahad who emigrated from Egypt  in 2018 where he had some flying experience. 

To keep his love of aviation alive he built the cockpit by himself from some 2,000 pieces. 

The program in the cockpit can take you to aerial views of Sydney and the major capital cities around  the world. In addition it has a multitude of global landing sites for the A30.

It is so well regarded that pilots utilise to brush up on their skill sets.

People can also go on joy rides from 15 minutes to an hour. Pricing can be found on the website.

https://sydneyflightsimulator.com.au/

Featured photo : The pilot is Achmed Abdelwhahad who emigrated from Egypt  in 2018 where he had some flying experience. Text and photos by Ben Apfelbaum.

 

 

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborlang. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, United States, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication. To celebrate the opening of a permanent Photography Gallery, the State Library of New South Wales selected 400 shots from its archive of over 2,000,000 images to display in the new gallery. An image of mine was plucked out of the multi million photo archive to be part of the inaugural exhibition.