[simpits-tech] Justin- Good artical on the C-17 sim

[Chris Woodul]

Hi Justin,

I am familiar with the HUD focus delima. I long time ago in a galaxy far far
away, I worked for a guy named Bob Carter for a year or so. He was the guy
who started Thrust Master out of his garage. He also started several other
companies including FLight Dynamics, which makes many of the HUDs in
airliners ( IE the late model 737's)
I toured the Flight Dynamics factory in 1998, and was shown how the image
from the CRT has to pass thru a very complex set of optics ( would make the
folks at NIKON get hardons) the purpose of which was to cause the image from
the CRT to be focused at infinity. Infinity naturally occours at 300 feet.
Hence the optics to trick the light into being force focused at that
distance. Since in real jets you are actually looking at infinity out the
window, it all works like a charm. When you stick a monitor, or a dome very
close to the HUD, your eyes cant focus on the two "near" objects. Simulator
makers have ways around the Focus issue for HUDs but the optics are very
expensive and totally differnt for use in a sim ( imagine trying to get the
target box in the HUD to line up with a plane on a dome or monitor in front
of the HUD, as opposed to doing it for a plane at four miles away in Real
Life? In the case of the C-17 they aparently opted not to use a simulator
specific HUD option. Kaiser makes a sim specific F-16 HUD, and I have seen a
really strange solution for the F-16 Block 40 LANTRIN HUD, that was angled
the wrong direction to the pilot( youll just have to see the pictures of it
to understand)
I gave Matt Wietlespach his HUD back in 1998, and told him then, that the
focus thing would be a problem. I really enjoyed watching him cut it up and
"personalize" that HUD.
A similar problem is for people with airliner sims. If you have two people
sitting side by side looking out the window at a screen directly in front of
them, you are going to have some collomation issues. Thats why the newer
visual systems for airliners have a gigantic curved mirror in front of the
windows. That mirror is reflectin g an image that is being back projected
onto a smaller curved radius screen ABOVE the pilots heads. What happens is
the image is much further away for the pilots and the image appears more
collomated. Home airliner cockpit builders will find if they use a projector
onto a screen directly in front of the pilots that each pilot will be trying
to correct the plane to "his" centerline. The optics of the large Level D
visual simulation systems is very very complex, and is well thought out. AND
IT IS VERY VERY EXPENSIVE.
Justin can you email me your phone numbers via discrete?

Chris Woodul

----- Original Message -----
From: "Justin Messenger" <jjmessenger@yahoo.com>
To: <Simpits-tech@simpits.org>
Sent: Monday, June 10, 2002 9:45 PM
Subject: [simpits-tech] Justin- Good artical on the C-17 sim


> Chris,
> The seat looks great, but what else would I expect? :)
> The C-17 sim was a great time to be sure. One thing I
> forgot to mention in the article was the problemn with
> the HUD. You cannot focus on the HUD and the outside
> view at the same time, its the same problem Matt has
> with his sim but the C-17 HUD cost a _lot_ more. Send
> me a private email and we'll talk more about what you
> want to know.
> Justin.
> Phantom.highspeedzone.com
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
> Justin, i just built a one to one all metal replica of
> the C-17 throttle =
> quadrant for a company called AAI. We also built a
> spare just for our =
> display case, but I got a call from NASA who are
> building a simulator to =
> test out algorythms for flying a C-17 with engines
> only ( ie Crash of =
> United flight 232 in Souix City Iowa) A company called
> Wittestien =
> Solutions Inc is making it control loaded for us and
> we shall be =
> integrating it all. Id love to ask you some Technical
> questions about =
> the operation of the REVERSE Thrust ( which seems to
> be fairly unique on =
> the Globemaster III)
> Id also love for you to possibly get me in touch with
> your contact =
> there...It sounded like you had some fun.
> Thanks,
>
> Chris Woodul
> PS you can see the SIMULATED SJU-17/A NACES seat for
> the F/A-18 that I =
> designed and built on our company website, or on
> Wittestiens website ( =
> they rep our stuff)=20
> Let me know what you think of the seat!
>
> www.fain.com
> www.wittsolutions.com
> try both of these sites--- our website doesnt show
> much of our sim =
> capability because Wittenstien Reps our stuff
>
> Chris Woodul
>
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