The airspeed is down to 60 and slowing rapidly. I can feel the nose pitching up, and maybe a little buffet - we're right on the edge of the stall. The attitude indicator shows an extreme nose-high attitude, and the view out the windshield confirms it - nothing but cowling and sky. The ground is nowhere to be seen.
"When the stall breaks, apply full right rudder and aileron."
There's the break! OK, full right rudder and aileron. I can feel the nose drop and turn to the right. Holding these inputs sure helps the spin develop quickly.
"Don't begin your recovery until I say to."
Zero airspeed, the attitude indicator seems to be flipping between brown and blue, the heading indicator's turning steadily, and we've got a healthy rate of descent. Definitely a spin. But we're above a cloud layer, and it doesn't offer enough definition for me to count the number of turns. It's just as well - I never liked counting turns in a spin; all I want to do is get out of it.
"OK, begin your recovery."
Finally! Let's see - neutralize the controls, then apply full rudder opposite the direction of the spin. There's full left rudder. I'm not sure I'll be able to recover before I go into these clouds. Is that a flag on the attitude indicator? The rotation's slowing...keep the wings level...we're through the clouds - I can see the ground...now, just pull out of the dive....
"Nice recovery!"
Thanks. I've only done spins a few times, although the fact that I have done them at all sets me apart from most private pilots. But this is the first time I've done a spin without an airplane.
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The maneuver described above could have been flown in an airplane - ideally, without spinning into the cloud layer - but it wasn't. Instead, it was performed in a full-motion flight simulator based on personal computer software not unlike the programs described on these pages.
Two Pennsylvania companies, Environmental Tectonics Corporation in Southampton, near Philadelphia, and Fidelity Flight Simulation, Inc. in Pittsburgh, are blazing the trail toward the next generation of general aviation flight simulation. Their products can be certified to Flight Training Device (FTD) Level 2 by the FAA, which allows simulator time to be applied to the flight-hour requirements of most pilot certificates and ratings, including the private pilot certificate and the instrument rating.
The full-motion FTDs from Environmental Tectonics and Fidelity have significant differences, too. Let's take a brief look at both.
Applying Airline Concepts To GA
Fidelity Flight Simulation was founded in early 2000 by Graham Hodgetts, a mechanical engineer and glider pilot, and Gary Van Drie, an airline pilot and check airman who spends a lot of time in $15 million, high-end flight simulators. "The two of them felt very strongly that they could develop a device with both visual and motion cues," said Geoff Barefoot, the company's executive vice president.
The result is a flight training device that uses technology similar to that employed in much more expensive airline simulators, but employing a less-expensive, low-maintenance electric motion base. Fidelity's motion base can be configured with motion in three directions or six. On a 3-degree-of-freedom platform, motion is provided in pitch, roll, and heave (up and down). The 6-degree-of-freedom platform adds yaw, surge (forward and back), and sway (side-to-side). Both configurations include what Fidelity calls RealVision, a four-monitor, wraparound external view from the aircraft intended to make the simulator as suited for VFR training as it is for instrument training.
"We're all pilots," Barefoot explained. "We felt very strongly that it had to have motion cues. Your motion cues are processed many times faster than visual cues - you can't develop that without motion."
The practicality and economy of the simulator are additional benefits. "It's becoming more and more obvious that you can learn more in a simulator. You can do things in a simulator that you shouldn't do in an airplane," he observed. "And the economics - in a real airplane, you're lucky to get three approaches in an hour - but in simulator, you can do 10."
Barefoot said that Fidelity's 6-degree, dual-cockpit simulator with 140-degree wraparound visuals and full avionics sells for about $150,000; another model is $120,000, and a single-seat, 3-degree FTD without the wraparound visuals targeted for flight schools is priced around $40,000.
He said the device can be reconfigured to meet different training needs. Base models include the Cessna 172 and Piper Seneca, with single or dual throttle quadrants. Additional piston aircraft simply require a software change, he said. The software provides major topographical landmarks and accurate airport runway layouts for all large and midsize airports around the world. Smaller airports, if not already in the database, can be added.
Customers can even design their own aircraft. "It's like a virtual wind tunnel," Barefoot said, explaining that flight models and panels can be configured for specific aircraft. "In this sense, we've developed something that won't go obsolete quickly."
Fidelity has sold and shipped six units, and the FAA has approved the single-seat compact unit, said Mark Limbach, vice president of marketing. "There's no other FAA-approved FTD out there anywhere near this price, and this one provides a motion base." But cockpit resource management and line-oriented flight training programs require the two-place model, he said, and the company anticipates a bright future for the product line.
"Getting airline training tools into the GA training industry was what Graham Hodgetts and Gary Van Drie had in mind when they founded the company," Limbach said.
The FAA recently issued Flight Training Device (FTD) Level 2 certification to the Motus simulator installed at Windsong Aviation, an FBO with a new flight school at Jeffco Airport in Denver. Students there now can log time toward primary and advanced pilot certificates and ratings, and use the device for recurrent training.
Rod Tipton, Windsong's president, said in February that the company was just beginning to market the newly certified simulator. Windsong bought the sim last summer, and employee Curtiss Boyll - who is studying aeronautical engineering at Colorado University - did a lot of the testing and certification R work.
"The demos we've done were very well accepted by all pilots, from highly experienced to low time," Tipton said. "Overall the product has the potential of doing a lot of things. It's a lot of bang for the buck. We're going to use it for some primary. We'll target instrument recurrency and instrument training, because it does that so well. You can do spins in it without hurting the airplane. It's really a nice piece of equipment."
Other Fidelity simulator customers include Aero-Tech, Inc., a flight school in Lexington, Kentucky; American Aviation Academy in Ozark, Alabama; Central Flying Service, a flight school in Little Rock, Arkansas; Harrisburg Jet Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; and Turbine Training Center, a division of General Aviation Training and Testing Service in Manhattan, Kansas.
What's next for Fidelity? "The thing we're looking at hard is control loading," Barefoot said. "That adds a lot of complexity to the machine to get FTD Level 3, which would allow instrument checks done in simulators."
Building On A Legacy
Environmental Tectonics is a diversified company that has been in business for more than 32 years, providing - among other products - aircrew training systems to primarily military customers in several countries and hypobaric (altitude) chambers and other aeromedical training equipment to both civil and military aviation. The company's Gyrolab flight simulator, designed to teach pilots of high-performance aircraft how to recover from spatial disorientation and departure from controlled flight, offers a unique sustained-G capability.
The company knew that spatial disorientation was a cause for a significant number of general aviation accidents and thought that the time was right to introduce an economical full-motion GA simulator, explained Glenn King, Environmental Tectonics' aircrew training systems applications manager.
His company had built two spatial disorientation simulators for the FAA, replacing the venerable Barany chairs. These devices would spin a pilot at a constant rate, displacing the fluid in his inner ear. Then, when asked to move his head, the pilot would experience the same type of disorientation that could be encountered in flight.
"The Barany chairs gave you the coriolis illusion, but there was nothing to do after that," King explained. "That's the difference with this generation of simulator - you get the coriolis illusion, but you still have to fly the airplane."
Environmental Tectonics bought the Pro Pilot flight simulator program from Cirrus Software, then modified it to work with its GAT-II (general aviation trainer) and fly like an airplane. The single-seat enclosed simulator (photo, p. 23), priced at about $100,000, places the pilot at the center of the rotating motion base. Operation covers three axes of motion, including plus or minus 12 degrees of pitch, plus or minus 20 degrees of roll, and a full 360 degrees of yaw. A GPS navigator is optional.
An instructor's station allows the CFI to fail individual instruments or entire systems, adjust winds, or change the weather, temperature, fuel load, or the aircraft's center of gravity. For spatial disorientation training, the simulator is programmed with profiles for 14 different illusions - including coriolis, the graveyard spiral, autokinesis, false horizons, and runway width and sloped runway illusions.
Let's examine one illusion more closely. Coriolis leads to the sensation of tumbling forward. It could occur, for example, when making right turns in a holding pattern at night, and then being instructed to make a turn to the left. "This is where the motion base really comes into play," King said. "You can't do this with a fixed-base [simulator] - you need those vestibular cues."
A rotational motion base offers a significant advantage over a hexapod, or 6-degree-of-freedom, motion base, explained King - the rotational base can provide sustained G cueing. Sustained G cueing is important to stimulate the vestibular system, namely the semicircular canals and otolith organs, which provide the brain with position and movement information that helps to maintain balance and fixation of the eyes on objects. When properly stimulated with sustained movement, they provide correct - or incorrect - sensory cues to the brain, thus leading to spatial disorientation.
"This is where aviation safety training benefits a student from the beginning," he added. "When they learn early, they can benefit from it for their entire flying career."
FlightSafety International's Pilot Training Academy in Vero Beach, Florida, has bought two GAT-II simulators and is using them to incorporate spatial disorientation training as part of its curriculum, King said. Other customers range from Oklahoma State University in Tulsa to Waukegan Wings, a five-airplane flight school in Illinois.
In addition to spatial disorientation training, the GAT-II can be used in private pilot and instrument rating instruction, and for instrument currency. "Once the instructors get comfortable with the device, they begin to use it a lot more. At first it's a spatial disorientation trainer."
King said that Environmental Tectonics will eventually offer a three-tiered package. The GAT-II software will provide the basis for ProTrainer, a personal computer-based aviation training device (PCATD) product. The third tier will be ProPilot, a personal computer-based version that students can use at home. Although the software is set up to represent a Cessna 172, it also can replicate Piper aircraft or a Beech Bonanza. Multiengine and helicopter versions are coming, he noted.
For more information, contact Environmental Tectonics at 125 James Way, Southampton, Pennsylvania 18966, telephone 215/355-9100 or visit the Web site ( www.etcusa.com ); or Fidelity Flight Simulation at 1541 Spring Garden Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15212, telephone 412/321-3280, or visit the Web site ( www.flight-simulation.com ).
Semi-simulators
Focus On Specific Tasks
The past few years has seen the emergence of another category of simulation products - specific task trainers such as Comm1 Radio Simulator and Aviation Tutorial's VOR/NDB Simulator.
VOR/NDB Simulator (see "Pilot Products," October 2001 AOPA Flight Training) teaches - you guessed it! - VOR and NDB navigation techniques by allowing the user to intercept and track VOR radials and NDB bearings, including such advanced instrument skills as DME arcs and holding. The application includes horizontal situation indicator (HSI) and radio magnetic indicator (RMI) functions.
Comm1: VFR Radio Simulator helps pilots learn proper phraseology and become more comfortable using the aircraft radio by simulating air traffic control communications that cover the full range of VFR flight situations. Two similar products, Comm1: IFR Radio Simulator and Clearances On Request, help instrument students and instrument-rated pilots with those more specific communication skills.
For more information, contact Aviation Tutorials at 8555 Apple Creek Drive, Oak Creek, Wisconsin 53154; telephone 414/761-9331; or visit the Web site ( www.avtutorials.com ). Contact Comm1 Radio Simulators at 111 East Church Street, Frederick, Maryland 21701; telephone 301/620-9500; or visit the Web site ( www.comm1radio.com ).
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