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Can someone explain how Airplane Simulators for pilots work? Do simulators have the same hardware as real planes, or do they have a software model of the airpl

Can someone explain how Airplane Simulators for pilots work? Do simulators have the same hardware as real planes, or do they have a software model of the airplane? If you simulated a broken AoA sensor, would the simulated plane behave similar to the real plane? Would the MCAS system have the same bugs in the simulator as in the one in the real aircraft? Can you try new scenarios in a simulator, or can you just try scenarios that the simulator was designed to run?

Wamou 7y ago
It varies wildly on the simulator. Boeing or Airbus are completly able to rehost their software on a simulator mostly made from real OEM parts. From that, it's simply a matter of designing new scenarios from what you're feeding the various sensors. On the other hand, if you're simply looking for some training hours on some specific basic scenario and/or aircraft, the simulators can be a lot rougher and still be certified. I "flew" on an airliner manufacturer designed simulator, and everything from the instrument panel to the hydraulics simulating the small impact when rolling between plates on a concrete runway felt pretty damn real. For more basic stuff, even X-Plane exists in an FAA-approved version.
- HorkHunter 7y ago
  Out of curiosity, where can an average joe like me find and "fly" one of these?
  - joezydeco 7y ago
    https://www.x-plane.com/ https://www.x-plane.com/
    - robohoe 7y ago
      If OP does end up getting X-Plane, I suggest downloading a freeware 737 airplane called Zibo 737. It’s an extremely detailed version of 737-800.
  - patch_cable 7y ago
    If you’re already a private pilot: http://www.atopjets.com/ http://www.atopjets.com/
  - Wamou 7y ago
    Some private companies offer short discovery sessions for enthusiasts, but the few I know of do cost around 150-250 euros for an hour. This particular one was within Airbus facilities, so definitely not something accessible to the general public.
  - fmj 7y ago
    EAA Airventure in Wisconsin. Boeing has had some of their simulators available for the public to try in past.
  - bboreham 7y ago
    This is a cheaper version, that I have experienced: http://www.flyipilot.com/ http://www.flyipilot.com/ ”iPILOT is currently available in London, Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Prague, Doha, Dubai, Basel, Zurich”
serf 7y ago
>Do simulators have the same hardware as real planes, or do they have a software model of the airplane? the avionics are usually real, being fed dummy data from a software model with regards to the plane. Here's a PDF about it.[0] Training simulators are typically convertible, meaning that the flight characteristics are entirely fluid and made by the simulator using physics models and data provided by the airplane manufacturer. This makes it possible to train multiple platforms on a single simulator. I don't know how corporate simulators work. In automotive fields they utilize all OE automotive hardware and the simulator is only in charge of feeding data to the automotive systems. I would hope that it's similar for corporate plane simulators -- a real plane ECM/brain and accompanying systems being fed dummy data. I doubt the corporate simulators are at all convertible -- they're likely brain-in-a-jar simulators; planes without engines or hydraulics, being fed dummy data. [1]: https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/nsp/ac/media/AC_120-40B-Ch2.pdf https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/nsp/ac/media/AC_120-40...
techdragon 7y ago
This helpful stack exchange question https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/3040/what-are-the-differences-between-various-simulator-levels https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/3040/what-are-t... and it’s associated answers do a good job outlining the progressively more demanding requirements for an airplane simulator built for use by certified pilots. I have a little background in this myself and the requirements to certify as Level C are tough l, but Level D requirements are quite stringent and rather hard to replicate. ( I did a detailed proposal a decade ago on using cutting edge VR and Haptics to try and cut the operational cost of maintaining multiple simulators for a flight training school. Level D was quite pedantic with respect to the “realism” requirements, we kept running into the requirement to not just look real, sound real, heck even feel real (switch actuation forces), but be real for that exact type of plane. Our argument was that we could reach sufficient fidelity with the haptics and graphics. This was all crazy expensive stuff, but ours would be cheaper crazy expensive stuff ;-) To put it into perspective, in a couple of cases we found it was cheaper to build a Level D simulator by cutting off the entire front of a real second hand plane (finding one with an airframe issue that made it no longer airworthy was the dream) of the desired type, and then wiring up all the switches and displays and electrical stuff to the simulator driving hardware and mounting the entire thing on a huge platform. The cost to buy the plane, cut the front off, tap and splice existing cable harnesses stiffen the cockpit section and overbuild the motion platform was cheaper than reverse engineering the layout with sufficient documentation and wiring a “fake” cockpit with sufficient accuracy including sourcing all the correct parts with the associated paperwork to prove they were all correct. It never went anywhere but it was very educational and has served as a useful perspective as I have observed the rise of the modern VR ecosystem with respect to input and haptics. :-)
- gmueckl 7y ago
  How would you have replicated the haptics in this project? I'm also quite interested in haptics for VR.
phugoid 7y ago
> Do simulators have the same hardware as real planes, or do they have a software model of the airplane? If you're looking at the highest fidelity level D simulators, the instruments and controls in the cockpit are either the same parts as the aircraft, or functionally identical (but cheaper). > If you simulated a broken AoA sensor, would the simulated plane behave similar to the real plane? Would the MCAS system have the same bugs in the simulator as in the one in the real aircraft? One of the big costs in building a simulator is buying the data package from the aircraft manufacturer, with the aero model and details of system internals, things like electrical and hydraulic schematics. Sim makers build a software model of these internals at a pretty low level. For the most part, if you introduce a fault in some part of the system it will behave the right way as an emerging property, not because you're forcing the system to have the right outputs. Some software components from the aircraft get installed on the simulator with the same hardware platform from the aircraft, others get run as executables on the simulator's computers, and others get re-implemented from scratch (lots of FORTRAN and C). That kind of detail comes into play when the instructors introduce multiple failures at the same time - pilots have to take corrective actions to make the faults go away or manage them - if you don't model the systems at a pretty low level you'll never high fidelity. > Can you try new scenarios in a simulator, or can you just try scenarios that the simulator was designed to run? There is a list of malfunctions available to the instructor, who runs the session from the back of the "cockpit" on touch panels. For the most part, these malfunctions cover failures that are anticipated by the aircraft manufacturers, and the corrective actions / system behavior are well understood. Each fault is tested to make sure it works properly. You don't go and fail some random component in the system. When an important failure happens in the real aircraft, it might get added as a training scenario to simulators already in operation.
- NotCamelCase 7y ago
  > You don't go and fail some random component in the system. I always wondered if they did that, something akin to fuzzing tests in SW. Wouldn't it be useful to detect unexpected situations that'd be catastrophic? Or the benefits from it wouldn't outweigh the cost/time loss?
  - 7y ago
willyt 7y ago
They accurately simulate the forces on the controls, see this youtube of 737 pilots unable to manually trim in the simulator [0], but I don't think they could anticipate and simulate every single possible fault. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow

Wamou 7y ago

It varies wildly on the simulator. Boeing or Airbus are completly able to rehost their software on a simulator mostly made from real OEM parts. From that, it's simply a matter of designing new scenarios from what you're feeding the various sensors. On the other hand, if you're simply looking for some training hours on some specific basic scenario and/or aircraft, the simulators can be a lot rougher and still be certified. I "flew" on an airliner manufacturer designed simulator, and everything from the instrument panel to the hydraulics simulating the small impact when rolling between plates on a concrete runway felt pretty damn real. For more basic stuff, even X-Plane exists in an FAA-approved version.

HorkHunter 7y ago
Out of curiosity, where can an average joe like me find and "fly" one of these?
- joezydeco 7y ago
  https://www.x-plane.com/ https://www.x-plane.com/
  - robohoe 7y ago
    If OP does end up getting X-Plane, I suggest downloading a freeware 737 airplane called Zibo 737. It’s an extremely detailed version of 737-800.
- patch_cable 7y ago
  If you’re already a private pilot: http://www.atopjets.com/ http://www.atopjets.com/
- Wamou 7y ago
  Some private companies offer short discovery sessions for enthusiasts, but the few I know of do cost around 150-250 euros for an hour. This particular one was within Airbus facilities, so definitely not something accessible to the general public.
- fmj 7y ago
  EAA Airventure in Wisconsin. Boeing has had some of their simulators available for the public to try in past.
- bboreham 7y ago
  This is a cheaper version, that I have experienced: http://www.flyipilot.com/ http://www.flyipilot.com/ ”iPILOT is currently available in London, Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Prague, Doha, Dubai, Basel, Zurich”

serf 7y ago

>Do simulators have the same hardware as real planes, or do they have a software model of the airplane? the avionics are usually real, being fed dummy data from a software model with regards to the plane. Here's a PDF about it.[0] Training simulators are typically convertible, meaning that the flight characteristics are entirely fluid and made by the simulator using physics models and data provided by the airplane manufacturer. This makes it possible to train multiple platforms on a single simulator. I don't know how corporate simulators work. In automotive fields they utilize all OE automotive hardware and the simulator is only in charge of feeding data to the automotive systems. I would hope that it's similar for corporate plane simulators -- a real plane ECM/brain and accompanying systems being fed dummy data. I doubt the corporate simulators are at all convertible -- they're likely brain-in-a-jar simulators; planes without engines or hydraulics, being fed dummy data. [1]: https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/nsp/ac/media/AC_120-40B-Ch2.pdf https://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/nsp/ac/media/AC_120-40...

techdragon 7y ago

This helpful stack exchange question https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/3040/what-are-the-differences-between-various-simulator-levels https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/3040/what-are-t... and it’s associated answers do a good job outlining the progressively more demanding requirements for an airplane simulator built for use by certified pilots. I have a little background in this myself and the requirements to certify as Level C are tough l, but Level D requirements are quite stringent and rather hard to replicate. ( I did a detailed proposal a decade ago on using cutting edge VR and Haptics to try and cut the operational cost of maintaining multiple simulators for a flight training school. Level D was quite pedantic with respect to the “realism” requirements, we kept running into the requirement to not just look real, sound real, heck even feel real (switch actuation forces), but be real for that exact type of plane. Our argument was that we could reach sufficient fidelity with the haptics and graphics. This was all crazy expensive stuff, but ours would be cheaper crazy expensive stuff ;-) To put it into perspective, in a couple of cases we found it was cheaper to build a Level D simulator by cutting off the entire front of a real second hand plane (finding one with an airframe issue that made it no longer airworthy was the dream) of the desired type, and then wiring up all the switches and displays and electrical stuff to the simulator driving hardware and mounting the entire thing on a huge platform. The cost to buy the plane, cut the front off, tap and splice existing cable harnesses stiffen the cockpit section and overbuild the motion platform was cheaper than reverse engineering the layout with sufficient documentation and wiring a “fake” cockpit with sufficient accuracy including sourcing all the correct parts with the associated paperwork to prove they were all correct. It never went anywhere but it was very educational and has served as a useful perspective as I have observed the rise of the modern VR ecosystem with respect to input and haptics. :-)

gmueckl 7y ago
How would you have replicated the haptics in this project? I'm also quite interested in haptics for VR.

phugoid 7y ago

> Do simulators have the same hardware as real planes, or do they have a software model of the airplane? If you're looking at the highest fidelity level D simulators, the instruments and controls in the cockpit are either the same parts as the aircraft, or functionally identical (but cheaper). > If you simulated a broken AoA sensor, would the simulated plane behave similar to the real plane? Would the MCAS system have the same bugs in the simulator as in the one in the real aircraft? One of the big costs in building a simulator is buying the data package from the aircraft manufacturer, with the aero model and details of system internals, things like electrical and hydraulic schematics. Sim makers build a software model of these internals at a pretty low level. For the most part, if you introduce a fault in some part of the system it will behave the right way as an emerging property, not because you're forcing the system to have the right outputs. Some software components from the aircraft get installed on the simulator with the same hardware platform from the aircraft, others get run as executables on the simulator's computers, and others get re-implemented from scratch (lots of FORTRAN and C). That kind of detail comes into play when the instructors introduce multiple failures at the same time - pilots have to take corrective actions to make the faults go away or manage them - if you don't model the systems at a pretty low level you'll never high fidelity. > Can you try new scenarios in a simulator, or can you just try scenarios that the simulator was designed to run? There is a list of malfunctions available to the instructor, who runs the session from the back of the "cockpit" on touch panels. For the most part, these malfunctions cover failures that are anticipated by the aircraft manufacturers, and the corrective actions / system behavior are well understood. Each fault is tested to make sure it works properly. You don't go and fail some random component in the system. When an important failure happens in the real aircraft, it might get added as a training scenario to simulators already in operation.

NotCamelCase 7y ago
> You don't go and fail some random component in the system. I always wondered if they did that, something akin to fuzzing tests in SW. Wouldn't it be useful to detect unexpected situations that'd be catastrophic? Or the benefits from it wouldn't outweigh the cost/time loss?
- 7y ago

willyt 7y ago

They accurately simulate the forces on the controls, see this youtube of 737 pilots unable to manually trim in the simulator [0], but I don't think they could anticipate and simulate every single possible fault. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoNOVlxJmow