Jetlagged From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 2452 posts, RR: 17 Reply 3, posted (5 years 5 months 4 weeks 15 hours ago) and read 1315 times:
I'd imagine there are quite a few sim techs whiling away long night shifts reading/posting in this forum. It's hard to work around simulators and not get interested in airliner tech/ops. I'm not a sim tech, but I am a simulator engineer.
The glass isn't half empty, or half full, it's twice as big as it needs to be.
MissedApproach From Canada, joined Oct 2004, 713 posts, RR: 2 Reply 5, posted (5 years 5 months 4 weeks 14 hours ago) and read 1301 times:
I work on simulators, but they're gunnery simulators, not flight sims. Typically our systems might run 3 or 4 computers in a rack, each specializing in a particular task & communicating on a LAN. The OS is usually commercial to keep costs down, older systems using DOS or an older Windows, sometimes Unix.
I was working on something in Trenton a few years ago & I took the opportunity to visit the guys running the CAE Herc simulator there. They run a proprietary program on C+ I think, but the big difference is in the video processing power. There are two rows of racks that mount video cards. They aren't full of cards (upgraded?), but there's still a lot of computing going on in there. There is an isolated anti-static floor, & cooled air flows underneath it & up through the racks, cooling the video cards. There is another seperate room with the hydraulic pump for the motion system & a power conditioner which isolates the system from the commercial electrical grid & provides clean voltages.
Although our simulators get more complex with each generation, it was very interesting to compare them to the pinnacle of simulation technology.
2H4 From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 8950 posts, RR: 62 Reply 7, posted (5 years 5 months 3 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 1182 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW HEAD DATABASE EDITOR
Out of curiosity, how damaging would it be to take a full-motion level D sim, turn crash inhibit off, go inverted, and auger the airplane straight down into the ground at, say, about 300 knots?
Pilotpip From United States of America, joined Sep 2003, 3081 posts, RR: 12 Reply 8, posted (5 years 5 months 3 weeks 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 1175 times:
Quoting 2H4 (Reply 7): Out of curiosity, how damaging would it be to take a full-motion level D sim, turn crash inhibit off, go inverted, and auger the airplane straight down into the ground at, say, about 300 knots?
2H4
The sim flakes out, and shuts itself down.
My sim instructor decided to teach me the importance of having my hand on the yoke down low by giving me an aileron runaway. Sim jerked hard to the right, screens went red, and we droped as the motion system went offline.
Flynavy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 9, posted (5 years 5 months 3 weeks 4 days 19 hours ago) and read 1147 times:
Quoting 2H4 (Reply 7): Out of curiosity, how damaging would it be to take a full-motion level D sim, turn crash inhibit off, go inverted, and auger the airplane straight down into the ground at, say, about 300 knots?
You can also "turn off" crashes. In this instance you would simply "bump" off the ground at 300 knots.
2H4 From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 8950 posts, RR: 62 Reply 10, posted (5 years 5 months 3 weeks 4 days 15 hours ago) and read 1124 times:
AIRLINERS.NET CREW HEAD DATABASE EDITOR
Quoting Flynavy (Reply 9): You can also "turn off" crashes. In this instance you would simply "bump" off the ground at 300 knots.
I can confirm that with crash inhibit off, the resulting jolt is of such strength that it produces a very long moment of silence among the flight crew while they contemplate the potential repair bill.
Jetlagged From United Kingdom, joined Jan 2005, 2452 posts, RR: 17 Reply 11, posted (5 years 5 months 3 weeks 4 days 13 hours ago) and read 1100 times:
It's hard to actually break anything on a modern sim. Software motion limits keep accelerations to a safe level. Older sims with glass mirrors in the visual system are a little more fragile. Forget seven years bad luck, breaking those is very expensive.
Turning crash inhibit ON is a dangerous thing to do as the sim could get into an unknown condition after a crash. Unpleasant on motion. On some simulators crash inhibit ON also tones down the motion response for safety. The only proper use for crash inhibit is if the instructor has inserted a gear collapse malfunction and doesn't want the sim to freeze as soon as the aircraft touches down (gear not down and locked crash). On sims where an inflight crash (excessive g, etc) also causes freeze it can be useful to inhibit this on certain training exercises.
The glass isn't half empty, or half full, it's twice as big as it needs to be.
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