Amateur flight simulation
Encyclopedia
Amateur flight simulation refers to the simulation
of various aspects of flight or the flight environment for purposes other than flight training or aircraft development. There is currently a significant community of simulation enthusiasts supported by several commercial software packages, as well as commercial and homebuilt hardware.
produced arcade game
s that resemble video games, but were in fact electro-mechanical games that used rear
image projection
in a manner similar to the ancient zoetrope
to produce moving animation
s on a screen
. One such electro-mechanical game by Sega was Jet Rocket, a crude flight simulator
featuring cockpit controls that could move the player aircraft around a landscape displayed on a screen and shoot missiles onto targets that explode when hit. In 1975, Taito
released a simulator video game, Interceptor, which was a crude arcade first-person
combat flight simulator that involved using an eight-way joystick
to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft that move in formations of two and scale in size
depending on their distance to the player.
Crude flight simulators were among the first types of programs to be developed for early personal computer
s. Bruce Artwick's subLOGIC
simulators were well-known for the functionality they managed to get onto 8-bit machines. Key computer game technologies such as 3D graphics, online play, and modding were first showcased in combat flight simulators such as Red Baron II and European Air War
. The game world in flight simulators is often based on the real world. However, they are often confined to one part of the game world by invisible boundaries. In some games, the aircraft simply halts in midair, while other games force the player to turn around. However, many games solve this boundary problem by wrapping the game world as a sphere.
Although these games strive for a great deal of realism, they often simplify or abstract certain elements to reach a wider audience. Many modern fighter aircraft have hundreds of controls, and flight simulator games usually simplify these controls drastically. Further, certain maneuvers can knock a pilot unconscious or rip their aircraft apart, but games do not always implement these concerns.
A popular type of flight simulator are combat flight simulator
s, which simulate combat air operations from the pilot and crew's point of view. Combat flight simulation titles are more numerous than civilian flight simulators due to variety of subject matter available and market demand.
In the early 2000s, even home entertainment flight simulators had become so realistic that after the events of September 11, 2001, some journalist
s and experts speculated that the hijackers
might have gained enough knowledge to steer a passenger airliner from packages such as Microsoft Flight Simulator
. Microsoft
, while rebutting such criticisms, delayed the release of the 2002 version of its hallmark simulator to delete the World Trade Center
from its New York
scenery and even supplied a patch
to delete the towers retroactively from earlier versions of the sim.
The advent of flight simulators as home video game entertainment has prompted many users to become "airplane designers" for these systems. As such, they may create both military or commercial airline airplanes, and they may even use names of real life airlines, as long as they don't make profits out of their designs. Many other home flight simulator users create fictional airlines, or virtual versions of real-world airlines, so called virtual airline
s. These modifications to a simulation generally add to the simulation's realism and often grant a significantly expanded playing experience, with new situations and content. In some cases, a simulation is taken much further in regards to its features than was envisioned or intended by its original developers. Falcon 4.0
is an example of such modification; "modders" have created whole new warzones, along with the ability to fly hundreds of different aircraft, as opposed to the single original flyable airframe.
One way that users of flight simulation software engage is through the internet. Virtual pilot
s and virtual air traffic controller
s take part in an online flying experience which attempts to simulate real-world aviation to a high degree. There are several networks where this sort of play is possible, the most popular ones being VATSIM and IVAO
. Virtual Skies provides a low barrier of entry allowing any level member to fly or control without worrying if something goes wrong. Virtual Skies covers mainly UK & USA VATSIM and is generally regarded to have better coverage of the virtual North America and Great Britain, while IVAO's pilots and controllers generally fly and control the virtual Europe, Africa and South America. IVAO's ATC certification process is not as strict as VATSIM's, which allows for a greater number of controllers to be available, but guarantees their proficiency to a lesser degree than VATSIM. Both networks receive anywhere from 300 to 900 ATC and pilot connections, depending on the time of day.
Much rarer but still notable are flight simulators available for various game consoles. The most notable of these were Pilotwings
, made available for the Super Nintendo
, the sequel Pilotwings 64
for the Nintendo 64
and the Ace Combat
series on PlayStation 1&2. The very rare Sky Odyssey
is yet another example of console flight simulators. Due to the restrictive nature of a game console's ability to simulate environments properly in general and the processing limitations of these systems in particular, game console-based flight simulators tend to be simplistic and have a more arcade-like feel to them. While generally not as complex as PC based simulators, console flight simulators can still be enjoyable to play, though their 'simulation' status is disputed by many in the flight simulation community.
Often referred to as Simpits, home cockpit building is a common hobby among simulator pilots. Simpits range in complexity from a single computer, with some effort to create a permanent area for simulation, through to complete cockpit reconstruction projects utilizing multiple systems. The growth in home cockpit complexity and realism has been further fueled by the opening up of the simulation software packages with published SDK
s (Software Development Kits) now common.
The push for higher realism in desktop simulation, often fueled by real pilots looking to practice cheaply at home, has led to a wide array of suppliers growing up to satisfy the demand. Hardware is available from a variety of commercial sources ranging from yokes, throttles and pedals, through to radios, lights and complete instruments. This home use hardware is rarely certified for flight training, so the hours spent practicing in the simpit will not count towards a pilot's hours. However it is widely utilized as an unofficial training aid, allowing realistic procedures practice, as well as the opportunity to complete visual or IMC approaches prior to a real world flight. This can help make a pilot's real-world flight time safer and more productive. Professional opinion is divided about how effective this home simulation can be against real world flight, and this has been a subject of debate in popular flying magazines such as 'Pilot' through 2007.
For those wishing more than a desktop simulator, replica panels are commercially available mimicking those found in a modern airliners such as a Boeing or Airbus. These panels will either fit into a real cockpit section, which some large scale home simulators are built into, or will be mounted in a home constructed cockpit frame, normally made from wood. With most modern airliners now using Glass Cockpit type displays it is relatively simple to replicate the displays in software, outputting them via multi head graphics cards or networked PCs to cheaply available LCD monitors mounted behind the panel. To the casual observer it can be hard to tell a home built static simulator and a commercial one apart.
Where commercial panels or controls do not exist, simulator builders will often create their own out of wood or similar easily worked materials. Another common route for sourcing the specific hardware needed in a simulator, and one used by the commercial sector as well, is to obtain a real component from a scrapyard and convert it for PC input. Interface hardware for these home-made controls is directly available from commercial suppliers, or can be obtained by dismantling cheap joysticks or similar components and rewiring them. Some home builds will even incorporate motion platforms, although unlike commercial simulators these are normally more limited in motion, and often rely on electrical motors as opposed to hydraulics.
Beyond the hardware of home cockpits, most flight simulator software can simulate modern aircraft systems to a very high standard in addition to the basic flight dynamics, providing accurate recreations of, among others, the FMC (Flight Management Computer), autopilot and engine management systems. With additional hardware and add-in software this may be extended further, for example into a fully functional overhead panel requiring real-world check lists to be followed for engine start-up and flight with a full flight deck crew.
is a natural extension of airspace
, space flight simulators may be treated as an extension of flight simulators' genre. There is a considerable interdependence between those two kinds of simulators, as some flight simulators feature spacecraft
as an extension and some space flight simulators may feature realistic atmospheric flight simulation engines.
Simulation
Simulation is the imitation of some real thing available, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system....
of various aspects of flight or the flight environment for purposes other than flight training or aircraft development. There is currently a significant community of simulation enthusiasts supported by several commercial software packages, as well as commercial and homebuilt hardware.
History and use
Prior to the rise of video games, SegaSega
, usually styled as SEGA, is a multinational video game software developer and an arcade software and hardware development company headquartered in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan, with various offices around the world...
produced arcade game
Arcade game
An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine, usually installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars, and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, and merchandisers...
s that resemble video games, but were in fact electro-mechanical games that used rear
Rear projection effect
Rear projection is part of many in-camera effects cinematic techniquesin film production for combining foreground performances with pre-filmed backgrounds. It was widely used for many years in driving scenes, or to show other forms of "distant" background motion...
image projection
Image projector
An image projector is an optical device that projects an image onto a surface, commonly a projection screen.Most projectors creates an image by shining a light through a small transparent image, but some newer types of projectors can project the image directly, by using lasers...
in a manner similar to the ancient zoetrope
Zoetrope
A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words "ζωή – zoe", "life" and τρόπος – tropos, "turn". It may be taken to mean "wheel of life"....
to produce moving animation
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
s on a screen
Projection screen
A projection screen is an installation consisting of a surface and a support structure used for displaying a projected image for the view of an audience. Projection screens may be permanently installed, as in a movie theater; painted on the wall; or semi-permanent or mobile, as in a conference room...
. One such electro-mechanical game by Sega was Jet Rocket, a crude flight simulator
Flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and various aspects of the flight environment. This includes the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of their controls and other aircraft systems, and how they react to the external...
featuring cockpit controls that could move the player aircraft around a landscape displayed on a screen and shoot missiles onto targets that explode when hit. In 1975, Taito
Taito
Taito may mean:*Taito Corporation, a Japanese developer of video game software and arcade hardware*Taito, Tokyo, a special ward located in Tokyo, Japan*Taito, also known as matai, paramount chiefs according to Fa'a Samoa...
released a simulator video game, Interceptor, which was a crude arcade first-person
First-person shooter
First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...
combat flight simulator that involved using an eight-way joystick
Joystick
A joystick is an input device consisting of a stick that pivots on a base and reports its angle or direction to the device it is controlling. Joysticks, also known as 'control columns', are the principal control in the cockpit of many civilian and military aircraft, either as a center stick or...
to aim with a crosshair and shoot at enemy aircraft that move in formations of two and scale in size
2.5D
2.5D , 3/4 perspective and pseudo-3D are terms used to describe either:* 2D graphical projections and techniques which cause a series of images or scenes to fake or appear to be three-dimensional when in fact they are not, or* gameplay in an otherwise three-dimensional video game that is...
depending on their distance to the player.
Crude flight simulators were among the first types of programs to be developed for early personal computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
s. Bruce Artwick's subLOGIC
SubLOGIC
The subLOGIC Corporation is an American software development company. It was formed by Bruce Artwick when he was at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and later incorporated by Stu Moment....
simulators were well-known for the functionality they managed to get onto 8-bit machines. Key computer game technologies such as 3D graphics, online play, and modding were first showcased in combat flight simulators such as Red Baron II and European Air War
European Air War
European Air War is a combat flight simulation released by MicroProse in 1998. European Air War is the sequel to 1942: The Pacific Air War by Microprose. The stock standard version simulates the Battle of Britain, and the Allied Air offensives in Western Europe during the Second World War in 1943-45...
. The game world in flight simulators is often based on the real world. However, they are often confined to one part of the game world by invisible boundaries. In some games, the aircraft simply halts in midair, while other games force the player to turn around. However, many games solve this boundary problem by wrapping the game world as a sphere.
Although these games strive for a great deal of realism, they often simplify or abstract certain elements to reach a wider audience. Many modern fighter aircraft have hundreds of controls, and flight simulator games usually simplify these controls drastically. Further, certain maneuvers can knock a pilot unconscious or rip their aircraft apart, but games do not always implement these concerns.
A popular type of flight simulator are combat flight simulator
Combat flight simulator
Combat flight simulators are video games used to simulate military aircraft and their operations...
s, which simulate combat air operations from the pilot and crew's point of view. Combat flight simulation titles are more numerous than civilian flight simulators due to variety of subject matter available and market demand.
In the early 2000s, even home entertainment flight simulators had become so realistic that after the events of September 11, 2001, some journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s and experts speculated that the hijackers
Aircraft hijacking
Aircraft hijacking is the unlawful seizure of an aircraft by an individual or a group. In most cases, the pilot is forced to fly according to the orders of the hijackers. Occasionally, however, the hijackers have flown the aircraft themselves, such as the September 11 attacks of 2001...
might have gained enough knowledge to steer a passenger airliner from packages such as Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator
Microsoft Flight Simulator is a series of flight simulator programs for the Microsoft Windows operating system, although it was marketed as a video game. It is one of the longest-running, best-known and most comprehensive home flight simulator series...
. Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, while rebutting such criticisms, delayed the release of the 2002 version of its hallmark simulator to delete the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
from its New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
scenery and even supplied a patch
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
to delete the towers retroactively from earlier versions of the sim.
The advent of flight simulators as home video game entertainment has prompted many users to become "airplane designers" for these systems. As such, they may create both military or commercial airline airplanes, and they may even use names of real life airlines, as long as they don't make profits out of their designs. Many other home flight simulator users create fictional airlines, or virtual versions of real-world airlines, so called virtual airline
Virtual airline
A virtual airline is a dedicated hobby organization that uses flight simulation to model the operations of an airline. Virtual airlines generally have a presence on the Internet, similar to a real airline...
s. These modifications to a simulation generally add to the simulation's realism and often grant a significantly expanded playing experience, with new situations and content. In some cases, a simulation is taken much further in regards to its features than was envisioned or intended by its original developers. Falcon 4.0
Falcon 4.0
Falcon 4.0 is an air combat simulation originally released on December 12, 1998 by MicroProse. It is a realistic simulation of the Block 50/52 F-16 Fighting Falcon jet fighter in a full scale modern war set in the Korean Peninsula. Falcon 4.0s dynamic campaign engine runs autonomously...
is an example of such modification; "modders" have created whole new warzones, along with the ability to fly hundreds of different aircraft, as opposed to the single original flyable airframe.
One way that users of flight simulation software engage is through the internet. Virtual pilot
Aviator
An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...
s and virtual air traffic controller
Air traffic controller
Air traffic controllers are the people who expedite and maintain a safe and orderly flow of air traffic in the global air traffic control system. The position of the air traffic controller is one that requires highly specialized skills...
s take part in an online flying experience which attempts to simulate real-world aviation to a high degree. There are several networks where this sort of play is possible, the most popular ones being VATSIM and IVAO
International Virtual Aviation Organisation
IVAO or International Virtual Aviation Organisation, is a non-profit organisation that operates a global and free-of-charge online flight-simulation network....
. Virtual Skies provides a low barrier of entry allowing any level member to fly or control without worrying if something goes wrong. Virtual Skies covers mainly UK & USA VATSIM and is generally regarded to have better coverage of the virtual North America and Great Britain, while IVAO's pilots and controllers generally fly and control the virtual Europe, Africa and South America. IVAO's ATC certification process is not as strict as VATSIM's, which allows for a greater number of controllers to be available, but guarantees their proficiency to a lesser degree than VATSIM. Both networks receive anywhere from 300 to 900 ATC and pilot connections, depending on the time of day.
Much rarer but still notable are flight simulators available for various game consoles. The most notable of these were Pilotwings
Pilotwings
is a video game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System . It was developed by Nintendo's Entertainment Analysis and Development division, led by producer Shigeru Miyamoto. The game was originally released in Japan on December 21, 1990, shortly after the launch of the SNES...
, made available for the Super Nintendo
Super Nintendo Entertainment System
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a 16-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America, Europe, Australasia , and South America between 1990 and 1993. In Japan and Southeast Asia, the system is called the , or SFC for short...
, the sequel Pilotwings 64
Pilotwings 64
is a video game for the Nintendo 64, originally released in 1996 along with the debut of the console. The game was co-developed by Nintendo and the American visual technology group Paradigm Simulation. It was one of three launch titles for the Nintendo 64 in Japan as well as Europe and one of two...
for the Nintendo 64
Nintendo 64
The , often referred to as N64, was Nintendo′s third home video game console for the international market. Named for its 64-bit CPU, it was released in June 1996 in Japan, September 1996 in North America, March 1997 in Europe and Australia, September 1997 in France and December 1997 in Brazil...
and the Ace Combat
Ace Combat
Ace Combat is a hybrid arcade-simulation flight action video game series featuring 12 games, published by the Japanese company Namco Bandai Games...
series on PlayStation 1&2. The very rare Sky Odyssey
Sky Odyssey
Sky Odyssey is an action/adventure flight simulator for the SonyPlayStation 2. It was developed by Cross and released in 2000...
is yet another example of console flight simulators. Due to the restrictive nature of a game console's ability to simulate environments properly in general and the processing limitations of these systems in particular, game console-based flight simulators tend to be simplistic and have a more arcade-like feel to them. While generally not as complex as PC based simulators, console flight simulators can still be enjoyable to play, though their 'simulation' status is disputed by many in the flight simulation community.
Homebuilt cockpits
Software development kit
A software development kit is typically a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...
s (Software Development Kits) now common.
For those wishing more than a desktop simulator, replica panels are commercially available mimicking those found in a modern airliners such as a Boeing or Airbus. These panels will either fit into a real cockpit section, which some large scale home simulators are built into, or will be mounted in a home constructed cockpit frame, normally made from wood. With most modern airliners now using Glass Cockpit type displays it is relatively simple to replicate the displays in software, outputting them via multi head graphics cards or networked PCs to cheaply available LCD monitors mounted behind the panel. To the casual observer it can be hard to tell a home built static simulator and a commercial one apart.
Beyond the hardware of home cockpits, most flight simulator software can simulate modern aircraft systems to a very high standard in addition to the basic flight dynamics, providing accurate recreations of, among others, the FMC (Flight Management Computer), autopilot and engine management systems. With additional hardware and add-in software this may be extended further, for example into a fully functional overhead panel requiring real-world check lists to be followed for engine start-up and flight with a full flight deck crew.
Space flight simulators
As spaceSpace
Space is the boundless, three-dimensional extent in which objects and events occur and have relative position and direction. Physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum...
is a natural extension of airspace
Airspace
Airspace means the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere....
, space flight simulators may be treated as an extension of flight simulators' genre. There is a considerable interdependence between those two kinds of simulators, as some flight simulators feature spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
as an extension and some space flight simulators may feature realistic atmospheric flight simulation engines.
Popular home flight simulator software
Popular flight simulators for home computers include:- FlightGearFlightGearFlightGear Flight Simulator is a free, open-source multi-platform flight simulator developed by the FlightGear project since 1997....
, a free and open source flight simulator - Condor: The Competition Soaring Simulator, a sailplane simulator with a great deal of realism and fun.
- Rise of Flight: The First Great Air WarRise of Flight: The First Great Air WarRise of Flight is a World War I combat flight simulator originally developed by the Russian IT Company, Neoqb and currently being developed by 777 Studios....
new generation combat flight simulator of World War IWorld War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918... - Microsoft Space SimulatorMicrosoft Space SimulatorMicrosoft Space Simulator is a space flight simulator program, based on Microsoft Flight Simulator, for MS-DOS/Microsoft Windows. It is one of the first general-purpose space flight simulators and it incorporated concepts from astrodynamics and celestial mechanics.- Features :*14 spacecraft models...
- Microsoft Flight Simulator SeriesMicrosoft Flight SimulatorMicrosoft Flight Simulator is a series of flight simulator programs for the Microsoft Windows operating system, although it was marketed as a video game. It is one of the longest-running, best-known and most comprehensive home flight simulator series...
- its latest installment (Microsoft Flight Simulator XMicrosoft Flight Simulator XMicrosoft Flight Simulator X, also known as FSX, is the latest version of Microsoft Flight Simulator after Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004...
) now includes space as an area to be discovered, with a payware space shuttle available. - Orbiter, a freeware space flight simulator
- Space Shuttle Mission 2007Space Shuttle Mission 2007Space Shuttle Mission 2007, also SSM2007 is a highly realistic Space Shuttle stand-alone mission simulator for the Microsoft Windows XP and Vista operating system...
, Includes several missions flown by space shuttle. - X-Plane, also includes a Space Shuttle and Mars flight simulators
- YS Flight Simulation 2000, a freeware flight simulator
See also
- FlightGearFlightGearFlightGear Flight Simulator is a free, open-source multi-platform flight simulator developed by the FlightGear project since 1997....
- Rise of Flight: The First Great Air WarRise of Flight: The First Great Air WarRise of Flight is a World War I combat flight simulator originally developed by the Russian IT Company, Neoqb and currently being developed by 777 Studios....
- International Virtual Aviation Organization
- Microsoft Flight SimulatorMicrosoft Flight SimulatorMicrosoft Flight Simulator is a series of flight simulator programs for the Microsoft Windows operating system, although it was marketed as a video game. It is one of the longest-running, best-known and most comprehensive home flight simulator series...
- VATSIM
- Virtual AirlineVirtual airlineA virtual airline is a dedicated hobby organization that uses flight simulation to model the operations of an airline. Virtual airlines generally have a presence on the Internet, similar to a real airline...
- X-PlaneX-PlaneX-Plane is a flight simulator, designed for Mac OS X, but also available for Windows and Linux produced by Laminar Research. X-Plane is packaged with several commercial, military and other aircraft as well as basic global scenery which covers most of the earth. X-Plane also comes with other...
- YS Flight Simulation 2000