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Editorial

Flight Simulator Technology Through the Years

Posted on Mon, 12 Jul 2010 17:46:23 GMT

We are living in era of technology. Technology is booming today and it has touched every aspect of life. Either we talk about our daily life or highly skilled tasks. They can be related to earth, water and space which are considered as main factor of life. Here we are talking about space.

Every country keeps a progressive thinking for its space programs. Either they are related to satellites or aircrafts. These are very economic programs so for there working and maintenance some techniques are available. One of them is Flight simulator. Flight simulator is actually simulation of flight considering every aspect of flight environment. Flight simulation is an important tool in space related programs.

It is used for various purposes as flight training and development of aircrafts. Flight Simulators are used for collecting various degrees of details used in high technically skilled programs such as Software modeling, Cockpit design, Black box design and wide field visual systems. Software modeling is very important as it is used in controlling. Cockpit details are important as they are directly related to flight. Wide field visual systems that is mounted on a large platform known as Large Six Degree of Freedom Motion platform.

Simulation during the World Wars

A WWII "Blue Box" flight simulator.

A WWII "Blue Box" flight simulator.  It's very rare to find working examples of these any more.

If we go back to history, during wars it was used to train different skills to a new pilot. During World War I many new devices were tried to devastate enemies and triumph the war.

The Machine gun was main tool in air war. To train a pilot for machine gun it was important for pilot to lead targets so a ground simulator was needed to teach this skill to new pilot and as it is said that necessity is mother of invention, ground simulator was developed to teach targeting skills to new pilots. After World War I they proved their necessity during world ear II too and heavily used to train specific skills to new pilots. After World War I and World War II, Link Trainer was one of best known simulation device that was developed by Edwin Link. It had a specific motion platform that was used to provide pitch and motion. A generic replica of cockpit was mounted on the motion platform. It was designed for teaching of flying various planes in a safe and inexpensive environment.

During World War, allied nations were well aware of success of these simulators so they used simulators heavily during war. As data is available some ten thousands Link Trainer were used for training purpose of new pilots by Allied Nations. After war they were used by several air forces of the world seeing the success rate of these simulators. During wars, some parties prefer to night war as their special technique so something was needed to provide experience about flying in night so some trainers were used to provide learning experience of how to fly in night missions. As technology was growing, computers were changing the mode of operations for different type of machines.

WWII Flight Training Video

Below is a World War II flight training video created by the First Motion Picture Unit of the Army Air Forces showing Take-Offs and Landings.  It's quite entertaining to watch.

Adoption of computer based simulators

When it was time of analog computers they were used largely in different types of organizations. Analog computers were used in problem solving for equation of flight in field of simulation. The result was electronic simulators. With the advancement in technology new simulators came in existence. During 1950, Curtiss Wright designed the first complete simulator that was owned by any individual airline named Pan America. The trainer name was Boeing 377 Star Cruiser. In Boeing 377 Star cruiser, Curtiss Wright did not install any motion or visual system but the cockpit used in it was fully activated and fully functional. Boeing 377 Star Cruiser was used to provide training to flight crews.

Early visual systems were equipped with a terrain model which was small in size. In terrain model a camera is mounted over the model terrain. In this way resulting image were displayed to the pilot. The camera was so well positioned that it responded to pilot input for controls within no time. Thus it provided a proper and clear image of terrain over which it was mounted. The geographical areas, which were simulated with simulator in this manner, were small in size. So the area simulated in this manner was usually limited to just near airport. In the case of military instruments, the area was limited to terrain or their own targets. With the advancement of time and technology, simulators were on advancements. Now it was time of Motion System that came in to the picture. In 1954 Link Division of L-3 Communications developed a motion system. In this Motion System Some advancement was done. In this motion System, a cockpit was introduced within a metal framework first time. This specific design of cockpit provided three degree of angular displacements. The First displacement was in the pitch.

The second displacement was in roll. Last displacement was in yaw box. With the advancement of time from 1954 to 1964, the advancement in degree was from 3 to 10. Some advancement was in shape also appeared. Now the size was more compact. By 1969 motion systems became more advanced and now were controlled with hydraulic pressure. Six degree of freedom was now in service and it has replaced the 3 degree of freedom. By 1977, it was now time of more modern configuration. Many aircraft simulators began adopting the modern Cab Configuration. In this modern Cab Configuration, computers were used in simulation.

Early 1983 Sublogic flight simulator created by Bruce Artwick

Early 1983 Sublogic flight simulator created by Bruce Artwick.

Now non-cockpit hardware was used. The computers were placed on the motion platform along with the cockpit and instructor station, rather being located far away from the simulation platform. In this advanced configuration, equipment is accessible using a wraparound tool while the motion system is disabled. By 1960, now it was time of Digital computers. The use of digital computer now took place instead of analog computers. In 1972, Singer-Link used a curved mirror and a Beam Splitter for his experiment and became succeeded by developing a Collimating Lens Apparatus. This system was able to provide a distant focus point as target to pilot by projecting the Out of the Cockpit window (OWT).

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