3 ms·
Danny Cohen, Inventor of the First Flight Simulator, Dies at 81
- wbl 7y agoFirst computer flight simulator. Earlier devices such as https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Trainer were used and mechanically based.
- fortran77 7y agoThese non-computer machines were incredible, too. I remember one at Grumman Aerospace. They had a model of the landing area that looked like a giant model railroad set, but it was vertically mounted. There was a camera mounted on rails that could do X, Y, and Z, motion that corresponded to how the airplane was being piloted. The view from the camera was what was shown in the cockpit monitor.
- mannykannot 7y agoThe first Link trainers did not have any visual display. As everything is harder to do on instruments than with a view, such simulators are very useful for everything but initial training and advanced maneuvering (such as aerobatics, combat, in-flight refuelling, and a lot of the things helicopters are used for.)
- ChicagoBoy11 7y agoAre you describing something similar to what we see in Apollo 13 when they are training for the lunar module docking?
- davidw 7y agoHe died in August and there was a good thread about him back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20689675 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20689675