A Lufthansa Airbus 380 pulling into a gate at EDDF. The sheer size of the aircraft amazes one. Its interesting to note the distinct changes that airport gates have to undergo to accomodate such scale. Notice the dual level jetways…

Home-built simulation appliances have evolved to a point where most of them have their instrumentation seperated from the main flight model. In most cases, a separate, dedicated PC runs the MIP instrumentation – the Capt PFD/ND and Copilot PFD/ND. In many cases, the EICAS is also run by a dedicated PC.

Project Magenta started this seperation back in teh early 2000s. Since then there have been many more of these software packs.

2011 saw the launch and development of yet another one of these software packs – Marty and Hanne launched Prosim737. I must say i was initially skeptical. However, in following their forum, i was finally convinced that i had to try it myself.

I am glad i did. It turned out to be one of the finest pieces of software i have used. It does what it claims and even more. Most importantly, its reliable. Hardly fails. Fault tolerant. Its easy to configure. Most importantly, thier support is awesome and the software is constantly evolving. There is a release almost every two weeks with additional functionality.

The software interfaces with FS via FSUIPC. The server and clients are divided. This means that you can run them seperately. This allows load to be split across different PCs.

Overall, Prosim737 is a stable piece of software. I have tried it out with my setup and it works well. I have some work to do before i can configure all of he OVHD, the MIP and TQ to Prosim737 directly.

CPJ

For those looking to use FS9, TH2Go and Nthusim – Please note the following –

a) If you have a Th2Go Analog from over 5 years ago (I was early adopter and bought mine in 2005), it will not work. What i have known is that the device was limited to 2400 x 600 (3 800×600 devices) when i acquired it. Thereafter Matrox released an utility known as the Mode Extender Tool that allowed 4 extra modes to be enabled on the Analog device. One of them was the 3072 x 768 mode.

Despite the fact that i now have 3 projectors which allow 1024 x 768 resolution, the TH2GO analog device does not enable 3072 x 768. Try as much as i did to update all of the drivers, the software suite – the max resolution it brings up is 2400 x 600. This was one finding. Not sure how this would impact Nthusim (i.e. whether Nthusim requires a minimum resolution to work).

b) Since this resolution wasnt available, when i went into FS9 options, it would not allow me to select a resolution greater than 2400 x 600.

c) Upon trying a TH2Go Digital version and plugging it in – firstly the resolution became available on the PC. Secondly, when i brought up Nthusim and started FS9 in full screen mode, Nthusim warped the images correctly. Of course, remember to set the matching resolution inside FS9 via FS9 options. It will not do it correctly without it.

d) FS9 will not warp it windowed mode. Not sure if this is possible even in FSX, but it certainly does not work in windowed mode in FS9.

So two things learnt –

1. TH2Go Analog version (at least the early ones) do not offer anything greater than 2400 x 600 and hence will not work. A digital version is needed.

2. Nthusim warps FS9 correctly only in fullscreen mode.

Thanks,

firstinflight

The projector setup is complete. However, getting Nthusim to warp the images correctly (should have been a simple thing) is not coming out to be that straightforward. The DirectX DLL update  to v9 is complete.

Nthusim is definitely doing something because the images do warp. its just not warping the images the right way though.

The following pictures indicate the image with and without Nthusim running.

More when i find a solution…

cjois

While looking for help on how to install a new theme on a self hosted domain, i found this article.  Thought this would be useful to post here…

http://www.themelab.com/2008/03/02/how-to-install-a-wordpress-theme/

CPJ

The very notion of flight amazes us humans even after a century has gone by since we took to the air in the December of 1904.

It gives me immense pleasure to show children the concept of how lift is produced. Not so long ago I took it upon myself to devise a simple experiment to demonstrate the compelling power of air flow over an airfoil.

I used a piece of trim and shaped to serve as a symmetric airfoil. Attach it to a stand so that it doesnt have to be held by hand. Place this device on top of a sensitive kitchen weighing scale. Note the reading on the scale.

Take a home hair dryer. Research the specifications for the dryer to find the air flow velocity from the dryer. If this cant be found, the typical air velocity of a standard hair dryer ranges between 5 m/s and 15 m/s can be used.

Run the hair dryer and point the air flow over the airfoil while it is still placed on the kitchen scale. As the air flows over the airfoil, the weighing scale reading will begin to change – it will show a drop in weight. The drop in weight is on account of the lift being produced by the air flow over the foil. It makes the wing foil become less weightier on the scale – and hence the weight drop.

The weight drop must equal the lift produced by the foil.
Lift produced, L = .5 x Cl x v^2

Turn the dryer off. As soon as the air flow over the air foil stops, the lift produced is lost and hence the weight reading on the scale goes back to its original reading.

This proves the concept of airfoils producing lift via a simple experiment.
To advance this experiment further, the angle of the air foil can be changed, different types of airfoils can be used and camber and curvature of the foil can also be changed.

I met someone last week who in the course of discussing aviation, mentioned that Laminar Research had come out with an app for iPad. Instantaneous gratification…. It took me all of 5 minutes to download it.

Its a well done app. To bring in a flight model into a small footprint and have it run on a tablet like the iPad is not a small task. Then have it run really well is another thing all together. The app is a leaned down version of the full scale simulator, but even so it retains most of its authenticity in terms of the physics. The model reacts really well on the iPad and is sensitive to movement. The different views are well done and the ability to switch between views is very valuable.

Sound is realistic and instrumentation is adequate.

When there isn’t enough time to start up the full scale simulator, this app absolutely suffices and is not a great addition to the suite. Of course, for flight enthusiasts immersion is never enough and we always seek more!

CPJ

As always, this past month i was at the EAA Air Show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Of course everything else was there – the airplanes, the aerobatic events, the product vendors, and LOTs of visitors. The weather cooperated – it was a balmy 86 degrees with a light breeze.

One thing i have noticed change over the years is the number of instances of flight simulators that are present at the show. This season i noticed at least two instances of product vendors using simulators to demonstrate their aircraft.

One of them had a long line of people waiting more for the simulator, rather than truly wanting to see the aircraft itself – but heck, you cant blame those people. For those who dont have easy access to one, it is an attraction that one cant refuse. This one used XPlane as its base and a wide screen setup for visuals.

The seat was my attraction. I wanted to feel how active those seats were. They were actuator driven and USB controlled. The ride was nice. It did reproduce motion well enough. However, what i couldnt tell is whether it did reproduce all six degrees of motion. for those of you who are interested, it was produced by CXC Simulations.

CPJ