Flight simulation
A flight simulator is a system that tries to replicate, or simulate, the experience of flying an aircraft as closely and realistically as possible. more...
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The different types of flight simulator range from video games up to full-size cockpit replicas mounted on hydraulic (or electromechanical) actuators, controlled by state of the art computer technology.
Flight simulators are extensively used by the aviation industry and the military for pilot training, disaster simulation and aircraft development. Engineering flight simulators are also used in the aerospace industry as a platform for such tasks as:
development, testing, and verification of flight hardware (referred to as \"stimulation\" of flight hardware);
for testing and development of flight software;
for developing new cockpit displays for improved crew situational awareness.;
History
Because powered flight is hazardous to attempt untrained, from the earliest days various schemes were used to enable new pilots to get the feel of the controls without actually being airborne. For instance, the Sanders Teacher was a complete aircraft mounted on a universal joint and facing into the wind, able to rotate and tilt freely. Another early flight simulator of about 1910 was built using a section of a barrel mounted on a hoop.
A number of electro-mechanical devices were tried during World War I and thereafter. The best-known was the Link Trainer, which in 1930 just simulated mechanical motions, but was later enhanced to include instruments and was used by a number of countries during World War II and after.
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.
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 full motion systems often simulated ground terrain using an actual model of the terrain, and “flying” a camera over it to mimic the position of the aircraft. The resulting pictures were relayed to the pilots on TV monitors. Naturally rather limited areas of the ground were able to be simulated in this manner, usually just the area around an airport. A similar system was used by the military to simulate bombing raids, etc. The use of digital computers for flight simulation began in the 1960s.
In 1954, General Precision Inc., later part of Singer Corporation, developed a motion simulator which housed a cockpit within a metal framework. It provided 3 degrees of pitch, roll, and yaw, but by 1964 improved, compact versions increased this to 10 degrees. 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, and equipment is accessed via a wraparound catwalk.
Read more at Wikipedia.org
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