Fancy a go in a real flight simulator?
Discussion
Just got this email from my Father:
Please tell friends and family about British Airways’ flight simulator summer sale, which launches this Friday.
The sale, which runs throughout the summer until September 30, offers savings of up to 50 per cent and provides ideal gifts for Father’s Day.
Aspiring pilots can hone their skills on a Boeing 737 simulator from just £200 per hour, down from £399, and fly a simulated jumbo jet or Boeing 777 from just £299, down from £449 per hour session. All sessions are taught by professional British Airways pilots.
Direct bookings and vouchers can be made on www.ebaft.com from Friday.
BA has 15 full flight simulators covering both Airbus and Boeing aircraft types. The £10 million, full motion flight simulators are used to train BA’s 3,200 pilots, as well as flight crew from 50 other airlines.
Please tell friends and family about British Airways’ flight simulator summer sale, which launches this Friday.
The sale, which runs throughout the summer until September 30, offers savings of up to 50 per cent and provides ideal gifts for Father’s Day.
Aspiring pilots can hone their skills on a Boeing 737 simulator from just £200 per hour, down from £399, and fly a simulated jumbo jet or Boeing 777 from just £299, down from £449 per hour session. All sessions are taught by professional British Airways pilots.
Direct bookings and vouchers can be made on www.ebaft.com from Friday.
BA has 15 full flight simulators covering both Airbus and Boeing aircraft types. The £10 million, full motion flight simulators are used to train BA’s 3,200 pilots, as well as flight crew from 50 other airlines.
They really are amazing pieces of machinery, I spent 18 years building them.
I once got the chance to fly a Harrier, didn't do to bad until I had an induced engine failure, but I did manage to park it, 4 foot under the runway.
All I can say is if you can afford the experience go for it. OH
I once got the chance to fly a Harrier, didn't do to bad until I had an induced engine failure, but I did manage to park it, 4 foot under the runway.
All I can say is if you can afford the experience go for it. OH
I understand BA have just obtained an additional Airbus simulator specifically for training the prospective A318 crews on the carrier landing technique required for the New York-London City service due to start at the end of the year.
I definately want a go in that one....once they can sort the software out.
A fellow Yak driver who also drives a BA Airbus is down as one of the first crews for that job. I was going to move the spare arrestor hook we have kicking around from a Gannet to the back of his Yak in the hangar to be helpful, but the bloody thing weighs a ton.
I definately want a go in that one....once they can sort the software out.
A fellow Yak driver who also drives a BA Airbus is down as one of the first crews for that job. I was going to move the spare arrestor hook we have kicking around from a Gannet to the back of his Yak in the hangar to be helpful, but the bloody thing weighs a ton.
Slightly o/t, but there's a train simulator used to "train" (haha) drivers in Glasgow. Apparently a common joke on newbies is to wait until they're hurling down the track at a fair rate of knots. Then, because of the way the projected screen is setup in front of the cab, it allows for a colleague to run out in front of them, resulting in much hilarity and lols at the expense of the newbie.
Third hand story, so I don't know the accuracy - but still hilarious.
I had a go at the AWACS sim at RAF Waddington, first go landed percfectly, second go in bad wather ballooned it but recovered and then the instructor done a barrell roll in it and I felt very sick! The sims are fantastic and are unbelievably realistic feeling and looking, well worth a go.
I did my Masters thesis on simulator (VR) sickness. It's a fascinating subject if you're into planes and technology.
In the early days the US invested billions of dollars on the technology thinking that they would save a fortune on training. What they actually found was that performance reduced due to a peculiarity of how we're wired and issues with the fidelity of the simulation.
The simulators induced motion sickness, and the only way the pilots could stop this was to focus on a stationary object, which in this case was 'head down' in the cockpit. As anyone who has seen top gun knows, the key to dogfighting is maintaining situational awareness, which is mainly achieved by staying 'head-up'. Effectively the simulators trained the pilots to dogfight in exactly the opposite way they should have done.
They eventually tracked the problem down to a very slight delay in the control input and the motion response, which affected the pilots' vestibular system. In essence it tricked the pilots' vestibular system into thinking that the body had been poisoned, which resulted in an emetic response.
In the early days the US invested billions of dollars on the technology thinking that they would save a fortune on training. What they actually found was that performance reduced due to a peculiarity of how we're wired and issues with the fidelity of the simulation.
The simulators induced motion sickness, and the only way the pilots could stop this was to focus on a stationary object, which in this case was 'head down' in the cockpit. As anyone who has seen top gun knows, the key to dogfighting is maintaining situational awareness, which is mainly achieved by staying 'head-up'. Effectively the simulators trained the pilots to dogfight in exactly the opposite way they should have done.
They eventually tracked the problem down to a very slight delay in the control input and the motion response, which affected the pilots' vestibular system. In essence it tricked the pilots' vestibular system into thinking that the body had been poisoned, which resulted in an emetic response.
A friend of mine works for a company called alteon who run these sort of simulators and he took me and some friends along one evening for my birthday.
I can't say enough good things about the experience, it was absolutely fantastic.
From my point of view, i hadn't known what to expect, so was in awe when i saw the simulators in the bays and then to get inside and find a full working cockpit (even down to the oxygen masks
whoops!) was staggering.
I'd highly recommend these to anyone, but would suggest doing a few press ups before you go, I hadn't realised how much you have to hang onto the controls to prevent plumetting into the ground when you've got it a bit wrong
Here's a couple of quick cam phone videos of our session if anyone is interested.
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
I can't say enough good things about the experience, it was absolutely fantastic.
From my point of view, i hadn't known what to expect, so was in awe when i saw the simulators in the bays and then to get inside and find a full working cockpit (even down to the oxygen masks
whoops!) was staggering.I'd highly recommend these to anyone, but would suggest doing a few press ups before you go, I hadn't realised how much you have to hang onto the controls to prevent plumetting into the ground when you've got it a bit wrong
Here's a couple of quick cam phone videos of our session if anyone is interested.
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
Big Al. said:
They really are amazing pieces of machinery, I spent 18 years building them.
I once got the chance to fly a Harrier, didn't do to bad until I had an induced engine failure, but I did manage to park it, 4 foot under the runway.
All I can say is if you can afford the experience go for it. OH
Where was this Big Al? I once got the chance to fly a Harrier, didn't do to bad until I had an induced engine failure, but I did manage to park it, 4 foot under the runway.
All I can say is if you can afford the experience go for it. OH
I spent 6 years as a technician at Link-Miles in Lancing from 1985-91. Used to work on the visual side of things so I got to have a look around a quite a few simulators. Got motion sickness once as I'd spent an entire morning sitting in a stationary cockpit but with full visuals going!
MX-Si said:
Big Al. said:
They really are amazing pieces of machinery, I spent 18 years building them.
I once got the chance to fly a Harrier, didn't do to bad until I had an induced engine failure, but I did manage to park it, 4 foot under the runway.
All I can say is if you can afford the experience go for it. OH
Where was this Big Al? I once got the chance to fly a Harrier, didn't do to bad until I had an induced engine failure, but I did manage to park it, 4 foot under the runway.
All I can say is if you can afford the experience go for it. OH
I spent 6 years as a technician at Link-Miles in Lancing from 1985-91. Used to work on the visual side of things so I got to have a look around a quite a few simulators. Got motion sickness once as I'd spent an entire morning sitting in a stationary cockpit but with full visuals going!
I've had a bit of experience in full motion flight sims. They are amazing pieces of tech, and in some cases they cost more than the aircraft they are designed to simulate (although they obviously cost many times less per hour to operate than the real aircraft). They are great tools for training and they allow you to experience things you never would be able to safely experience in the real aircraft. As to realism, well once the motion is on the sense of banking, accelerating, and decelerating is very realistic feeling. And of course being in a cockpit with all the real switches, controls, etc really adds to the realisim, but it is still not the real thing. For one the visuals are still an easy giveaway (although night can look very real), and at least in my experience the simulator is always more sensitive to control inputs (especially in pitch) than the real aircraft. So if you do get a chance to fly a sim and you find yourself overcontrolling it you can at least know that the real aircraft is probably not so touchy. In the training environment, when you are in the sim, i.e. 'the box' you are too busy sweating bullets and trying not to screw-up to really enjoy it and you lose the sense of fun, but every so often you still get to have a bit of fun. While they are serious training tools they are also pretty darn cool and for anyone who really likes flying it would be a fantastic experience.
Mrs C bought me an hour in an F4 sim near Harrogate last year, now that was fun even though the visuals weren't up to much (think mid 80s flight sim and you would be near the mark). It was the front end off an old RAF Phantom and the ergonomics were an absolute nightmare - I couldn't get the seat down low enough and ended up slouching which made maintaining level flight interesting.
Still I didn't crash it and even managed a successful carrier landing, must be in the blood
Highly recommended to everyone.
Still I didn't crash it and even managed a successful carrier landing, must be in the blood
Highly recommended to everyone.
bodhi808 said:
A friend of mine works for a company called alteon who run these sort of simulators and he took me and some friends along one evening for my birthday.
I can't say enough good things about the experience, it was absolutely fantastic.
From my point of view, i hadn't known what to expect, so was in awe when i saw the simulators in the bays and then to get inside and find a full working cockpit (even down to the oxygen masks whoops!) was staggering.
I'd highly recommend these to anyone, but would suggest doing a few press ups before you go, I hadn't realised how much you have to hang onto the controls to prevent plumetting into the ground when you've got it a bit wrong
Here's a couple of quick cam phone videos of our session if anyone is interested.
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
Impressive take off lolI can't say enough good things about the experience, it was absolutely fantastic.
From my point of view, i hadn't known what to expect, so was in awe when i saw the simulators in the bays and then to get inside and find a full working cockpit (even down to the oxygen masks
whoops!) was staggering.I'd highly recommend these to anyone, but would suggest doing a few press ups before you go, I hadn't realised how much you have to hang onto the controls to prevent plumetting into the ground when you've got it a bit wrong
Here's a couple of quick cam phone videos of our session if anyone is interested.
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
http://s8.photobucket.com/albums/a3/bodhi808/?acti...
Of course, that's the easy bit. You just drive it straight down the tarmac until it jumps into the air, right
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