A WEM-based flight simulator business is using a former shipping container to transport its customers to the skies of the world.

A storage unit at Sleap Airfield currently houses the magic of virtual reality and is able to conjure up the approach over the blue Mediterranean of the Cote D’Azur into Nice, the heat haze of the deserts of Australia or the hectic flight paths to Heathrow.

Newly-launched Chesim Air Ltd is the brainchild of retired Shropshire agronomist and keen pilot Nigel Chesters and the 20-foot storage unit provided by Denbigh-based Container Sales Centre is the perfect base for his operation.

Nigel, 60, caught the flying bug ten years ago when a friend bought him a flying lesson.

“I used to hate flying,” he said. “But I went up with an instructor for an hour and I loved it.

“He told me to land the plane and I know there were dual controls but I must have made a reasonable job of it and I was hooked and carried on and got my pilot’s licence.”

The 20-foot storage unit provided by Denbigh-based Container Sales Centre is the perfect base for his operation and contains part of an actual aircraft.

The simulator features a wrap-around screen and housed in the actual cockpit of G-WARZ, a 1997 Piper Cherokee Warrior two-seater with a state-of-the-art G1000 avionics suite.

Nigel added: “It needed to be self-contained and secure and for the simulator to work properly it needs to be in darkness and so the storage unit from CSC is perfect.

“You can get flight simulator programmes for your computer but they don’t come with wrap-around screens which give you the actual sensation of being in a real aircraft which this is and this is the first of its kind around here.

“It’s a business and anyone can book an hour session and I’m already getting plenty of interest.”

For more on Chesim Air visit chesimair.co.uk and for information about Container Sales Centre visit containersalescentre.co.uk/new-containers