Giant Analog Flight Simulator (Dec, 1958)

[zenandzen]

Found this & thought i'd share it here.
( i would have been two years old when this was published)

http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/06/19/giant-analog-flight-simulator/

Cheers
Gerry

[percy]

In apx 1972 at KSFO I was able to watch a Pan AM 707 crew work out in a flight sim similar to the DC-8 one, no motion or visuals. The crews control of the aircraft during an engine failure on take offr was amazing.

[zenandzen]

I should have mentioned (oops) there are a few pages to this article & i love the page that shows the computer room ,it's the size of a house & it's full .

Also a quick read reveals ,for the visuals a model runway & airfield is filmed on closed circuit tv & fed back to the cockpit.
In fact that whole site has very entertaining images & front covers & articles of magazines of times gone by , great stuff.

[warvet]

Very very cool Gerry thanx for that bit of history :)I had no idea thats how they projected the image to pilots back then. wow extremely enlightening.

Tim
A340
Canada

[mgdaviso]

The old harrier sim at RAF wittering used to be just like this.... a huge room with a very large, small scale model of the Air Base and surrounding countryside, with a large camera that "flew" over the model. for visuals in cloud there was a portion set-aside with cotton wool in it... it's true!