Motion Simulators

[DeSoLaTe]

So my aviation class just went on a trip to Mchord airforce base on Thursday. We were able to fly in their full motion c-17 flight simulator. The whole thing was powered by hydraulics. Inside, there was an exact replica of a c-17 cockpit, controls and all. The senery and everything you would expect to see during a real flight was projected onto a curved screen that wraps around the cockpit (very cool). I was amazed at the realism and graphics of the program. You could see other c-17s taxing and even individual personel going about their business on base. I almost forgot that i was in a simulator (yeah, THAT real). Durring takeoff, I could feel the plane actually moving, it was very trippy. If you ever want something like this in your house, it would ONLY cost you about $20,000,000 plus maitanence. I probly wont get very many chances to fly on this sim again, but it was just mindblowingly amazing how real it was. c-17 pilots on base can log flight time in the sims. whenever their schedual premits, lucky!

[Alexej_nemov]

Im going to Bodo military airport this month, they have just installed a motion simulator of F-16 at the military museum, im looking forward to it..

[DeSoLaTe]

I wonder if there are motion sims. that have interchangeable cockpit layouts, you know, to increase the efficience and cut the costs. Have a single motion sim that can be used to train pilots in a variety of different aircraft instead of having one sim. per plane. Of course more simulators would be needed to train more than one pilot at a time, maybe 3 or so. i know there are 3 located on Mchord AFB and one or two others for the C-130, but those are used much less than the c-17 sims. They could replace all the sims with an interchangable system for any aircraft: c-17, c-130, and possibly fighter jets (not likely on Mchord because it typically only sees military transport planes like the C-17.