OT Simulators was Re: ABS - or is it Pure BS - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

6 Apr 1999

-----Original Message-----
From: Ward Donald Griffiths III &lt;gram(a)cnct.com&gt;
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt;
Date: Tuesday, 6 April 1999 14:16
Subject: Re: ABS - or is it Pure BS

...
 Computer Room Internet Cafe wrote:

> With all due respect, IMHO, simulators that are not mounted on big hydraulic
...
 > jacks and convince you that you are in a real
aeroplane are not much chop
> for anything except perhaps teaching instrument flying, and fairly limited
...
   in that area.

Even those have their limitations.  The C5A simulator I used to
service wouldn't tilt past 25 or so degrees from horizontal, so
there was no way to practice a barrel roll.  (Yeah, the computer
flight sims will let you do that, but they don't teach you how to
think with all of your heart's blood pressing on your brain). 

Exactly.   They also don't teach you to trust your instruments when your
middle ear is trying to convince you that you are flying straight and level
when in fact you are in a descending left spiral.   You just don't get the
feedback in your loungeroom.
The best sims in the world can't duplicate that experience, but they are at
least enough to give you an idea.   I know that people have been airsick in
the P3 sim at RAAF Edinburgh when they have turbulence dialled in.  It's
fairly convincing for most things.
They can't quite duplicate the separation of the wing leading edge when the
aircraft is overstressed, but they can at least reproduce the conditions.
(Real Orions are known to do that, we lost one at Cocos Island a year or two
back that way, not a fault of the aircraft, it was being, ahem, mishandled
at the time.)

...
 I'll admit I'm not the engineer to build a
decent _large_
aircraft simulator to give that experience -- part of the deal in
the C5A simulator was the fact that it was a rather large object
with a bunch of people in the cabin, hard to make that realistic
sticking the pilot (or navigator or flight engineer) in a closet. 
Suspension of disbelief is fairly vital if the simulator experience is to
have much usefullness when related to the real world.  It's got to feel real
enough to make you forget it's not an aeroplane, and it's got to behave like
the real aeroplane as much as possible without antigravity assistance.

Cheers

Geoff Roberts