A flight simulator is a system that tries to copy, or simulate, the experience of flying an aircraft. It is meant to be as realistic as possible. The different types of flight simulator range from computer based games up to full-size cockpit replicas mounted on hydraulic (or electromechanical) actuators, controlled by state of the art computer technology.
Use
Flight simulators are extensively used by the aviation industry for design and development and for the training of pilots and other flight deck crew in both civil and military aircraft.
Engineering simulators
Engineering flight simulators are also used by aerospace manufacturers for such tasks as:
- development and testing of flight hardware. Simulation (emulation) and stimulation techniques can be used, the latter being where real hardware is fed artificially-generated or real signals (sTimulated) in order to make it work. Such signals can be electrical, RF, sonar and so forth, depending on the equipment to be tested.
- development and testing of flight software. It is much safer to develop critical flight software on simulators or using simulation techniques, than development using aircraft in flight.
- development and testing of aircraft systems. For electrical, hydraulic and flight control systems, full-size engineering rigs sometimes called 'Iron Birds' are used during the development of the aircraft and its systems.
History
World War I and on
A number of electro-mechanical devices were tried during World War I and thereafter. For example, learning to fire a machine gun requires that the pilot learn to lead targets, so a ground simulator was developed to teach this skill to new pilots. The best-known was the Link Trainer, produced by Edwin Link in Binghamton , New York USA and available from 1929. This had a pneumatic motion platform driven by bellows giving pitch, roll and yaw, on which a replica generic cockpit was mounted. It was designed for the teaching of Instrument (cloud) flying in a less hazardous and less expensive environment than the aircraft. After a period where not much interest was shown by professional aviation, the US Army Air Force purchased four Link Trainers in 1934 after a series of fatal accidents in instrument flight. The world flight simulation industry was born. Some 10,000 Link Trainers were used in the 1939-45 war to train new pilots of allied nations. They were still in use in several Air Forces into the 1960s and early 1970s.
The Celestial Navigation Trainer of 1941 was a massive structure 13.7 m (45 ft) high and capable of accommodating an entire bomber crew learning how to fly night missions. In the 1940s, analog computers were used to solve the equations of flight, resulting in the first electronic simulators.
Simulators in the civilian aviation industry
In 1948, Curtiss-Wright delivered a trainer for the Stratocruiser to Pan American, the first complete simulator owned by an airline. Although there was no motion modelling or visual display, the entire cockpit and instruments worked, and crews found it very effective. Full motion systems came in starting in the late 1950s.
The early visual systems used an actual small model of the terrain. A camera was "flown" over the model terrain and the picture displayed to the pilot. The camera responded to pilot control actions and the display changed in response. Naturally only limited areas of the ground were able to be simulated in this manner, usually just the area around an airport or, in military simulators, typical terrain and sometimes targets. The use of digital computers for flight simulation began in the 1960s.
In 1954, the Link Division of General Precision Inc. (later part of Singer Corporation and now part of L-3 Communications) developed a motion simulator which housed a cockpit within a metal framework. It provided 3 degrees (angle) of pitch, roll, and yaw, but by 1964 improved, compact versions increased this to 10 degrees angle. By 1969 airline simulators were developed where hydraulic actuators controlled each axis of motion, and simulators began to be built with six degrees of freedom (roll, pitch, yaw for angular motion and surge, heave and sway for longitudinal, vertical and lateral translation). Starting in 1977, airline simulators began adopting the modern "cab" configuration where computers are placed in the cockpit area (rather than in off-simulator racks), and equipment is accessed via a wraparound catwalk when the simulator motion system is inoperative.
Around this time great strides were also made in display technology. In 1972 Singer-Link developed a collimating lens apparatus, using a curved mirror and beamsplitter, which projected Out of The cockpit Window (OTW) views to the pilot at a distant focus. These collimated monitors greatly improved the realism of flight simulation. However, each monitor only offered a field of view of 28 degrees and several were needed for a realistic field of view. In 1976 wider angle collimated monitors (e.g. ) were introduced, so-called 'WAC windows' standing for 'Wide Angle Collimated'. Finally, in 1982 the Rediffusion company of Crawley, UK, introduced the Wide-angle Infinity Display Equipment (WIDE) that used a curved mirror of large horizontal extent to allow distant-focus (collimated) viewing by side-by-side pilots in a seamless display. For details, see the entry under 'Collimation'. WIDE-type displays are now universal in the highest levels of Full Flight Simulators for aircraft where two pilots are seated side-by-side.
Flight simulators and flight training devices
Various categories of flight simulators and flight training devices are used for pilot training. These vary from relatively simple Part-Task Trainers (PTTs) that cover one or more aircraft systems, Cockpit Procedures Trainers (CPT) for practicing drills and checks, to so-called Full Flight Simulators (FFS). The higher levels of Full Flight Simulators have motion platforms capable of moving in all six degrees-of-freedom (6-DoF). They also have wide-angle high-fidelity collimated visual systems for displaying the outside world to the pilots under training. Medium to high-end simulators use a Control Loading System to provide realistic forces on the pilot controls. The simulator cabin containing the replica cockpit and visual system is mounted on a six-cylinder motion platform that, by moving the platform cylinder under computer control, gives the three linear movements and the three rotations that a freely moving body can experience. The three rotations are Pitch (nose up and down), Roll (one wing up, the other wing down) and Yaw (nose left and right). The three linear movements have a number of names depending on the area of engineering involved but in simulation they are called Heave (up and down), Sway (sideways left and right) and Surge (longitudinal acceleration and deceleration).
Flight simulators are used to train flight crews in normal and emergency operating procedures. Using simulators, pilots are able to train for situations that are unsafe in the aircraft itself. These situations include engine failures and failures or malfunctions of aircraft systems such as electrics, hydraulics, pressurization, flight instruments and so forth.
System trainers are used to teach pilots how to operate various aircraft systems. Once pilots become familiar with the aircraft systems, they will transition to cockpit procedures trainers or CPTs. These are fixed-base devices (no motion platform) and are exact replicas of the cockpit instruments, switches and other controls. They are used to train flight crews in checks and drills and are part of a hierarchy of flight training devices (FTD). The higher level FTDs are 'mini simulators'. Some may also be equipped with visual systems. However, FTDs do not have motion platforms, though many have the fidelity of the Full Flight Simulators. Images of the surrounding environment is projected on displays outside of the cockpit for effect. A computer or computers are used to generate the images, which can be very accurate, and simulate the movements of the instruments.
A full flight simulator (FFS) duplicates all aspects of the aircraft and its environment, including motion in all six degrees-of-freedom. Personnel in the simulator must wear seat belts as they do in the real aircraft. As the cylinders' travel in any simulator is limited, the motion system employs what is called 'acceleration onset cueing' that simulates initial accelerations well and then backs off the motion below the pilot's sensory threshold so that the cylinder limits are not exceeded.
Flight simulator use referenced in aviation incidents
Flight simulators have been referenced as having been used for training in security incidents involving real world aircraft. The 9/11 Commission in the US concluded in 2004 that those responsible for flying the planes into World Trade Center and Pentagon had used PC-based flight simulat
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