One of the great features of AVSIM's annual Convention and Exhibition is to hear presentations by both hobbiests who have in-depth knowledge in the most interesting aspects of flight simulation and from practitioners in real world aviation who can lend their perspective to our enjoyment. For example attendies heard significant news from both IVAO and VATSIM regarding their upcoming Virtual ATC Client IvAp and SquawkBox v3. We heard about flight simulation applied to a wealth of real-world training environments as well as practical advice about creating the environment you want for simulated flying, particularly Peter Cos' presentation on home cockpit realities, and Bill Womack's workshop on scenery design (a first for Avsim's conferences) followed by Ken Weik's session of AFCAD creation.

A most enthusiastically received Special Feature for this conference were the engineers from United Air Lines' Denver Flight Center who presented a panel of sessions on various aspects of real world simulation. That included another 'first', visuals showing the results of the Full Motion to PC Simulator Comparison (see below) And not-to-be-missed was the Microsoft's Flight Simulation team's presentation that not only illuminated some 'myths' surrounding FS configuration and performance issues, but got everyone's attention with their announcement of their forthcoming FS2004 'Update'. As posted on AVSIM's front page that Saturday, their FS2004 Update is expected to be available early in October, as some fixes are still being wrapped up. Some of the features it brings are all of the 160 missing bridges, new autogen objects for KJFK, enhanced frame rates and product stability as well as increased terrain data support, improved from 76 meter- to 19-meter elevation data. You'll find some pictures of Microsoft's announcement during their presentation here that Miro Majcen posted in AVSIM's forum.

Here's the presentations lineup as previously announced:
 

Flight Simulation Community Presentations: Saturday

Flight Dispatch: Plan Like the Pro's	Michael Collier
Flight Simulator; a Training Aid for Air Traffic Controllers	Lt. Col. Brian van Hout
Virtual Airlines and the Online Experience	Nate Johns &  Matt Johnson
IVAO ATC Client Software	Allen Sindel
Common Myths and Misconceptions About Flight Simulator	Rick Selby, Business Mgr &  Victor Santodomingo, FS Devel., Microsoft
gates.to/FSNet	Ugo Grandolini &  Maurizio Gavioli
Cockpit Building	Peter Cos

United Airlines Flight Center Presentations: Sunday

History of Flight Simulation at United Airlines	David Pepper
Full Motion to PC Simulator Comparison (Evaluation of PC vs. Full Motion Simulators using the FlightViz simulator debrief tool)	Jason Hartman
The Role of Standards in the First One Hundred Years of Flight Simulation—An Airline View	Tom Bennett
You Can't Do This in an Airplane!—The Reduction of Windshear Accident Rates through Simulator Training	Bob Ireland

As we've previously posted summaries of these presentations, I'll comment only on a few highlights here.

The Saturday morning and early afternoon presentations covered flight planning, ATC and the role of 'virtual airlines'; all with an interactive flying perspective. These presentations were notable in that they described the extensive environment surrounding real-world air transportation, thereby enriching our understanding of what happens "outside the cockpit" in flight planning,—the flight dispatcher's job for the most part—training and qualifying Air Traffic Controllers, and finally bringing all this into the flight simulation environment in real time through VATSIM's and IVAO's interactive networks. We truly had a glimpse of the future with previews of SquawkBox v3, and IVAO's ATC client ProController together with their Pilot client, IvAp currently under development.

Well, while all the sessions were very well attended, our 200 person presentation room was SRO for Microsoft's presentation. Rick Selby and Victor Santodomingo's comments on issues with FS2004 tuning were well received (you'll find much of that information at Microsoft's FS Insights website), and we enjoyed a number of film clips of interviews with FS developers on those topics Rick showed throughout his talk. But the real fun came with his surprise announcement of their FS2004 I mentioned above. And by popular demand Victor together with fellow developer Dave Denhart held a bonus 30 minute Q&A session after the UAL presentations later Sunday afternoon. All this goes to show that—given appropriate circumstances—Microsoft's management and developers are most accomodating and attentive to our concerns and expectations going forward.

Staying with our focus on simulation realism we turned to a new company, gates.to (formed by LAGO veterans Ugo Grandolini and Maurizio Gavioli) to tell us about their initial development effort FSNet. Their concept promises to add yet another dimension to interactive flying for, as Ugo puts it, "What about being able to share your cockpit with another pilot and cooperate on it?" As Ugo flew from his computer—while Maurizio, using another computer changed settings on Ugo's panel—we could see how cockpit crews might interact while flying their plane but from separate homes; instructor/student scenarios, and the like. We suspect this will be a very exciting development!

Then there's that perennial favorite, the home-built cockpit. Or as Peter Cos titled his talk, "Aim Too High... Never Fly!" His point is that you can easily become obsessed with precision, detail, and sheer complexity in the desire to emulate a real-world air transport cockpit—but loose sight that the point of it all is enjoyment. Peter's suggestion is to scope your plans carefully, perhaps selecting a contemporary regional jet's cockpit, one that is relatively clean in layout and with many of its functions automated (i.e., computer-based) rather than being faced with a myriad of switches and analog gauges to install and wire. He makes an excellent point!

Sunday morning's theme was software design, development and application to flight simulation. In Bill Womack's workshop attendees exchanged perspectives as to how best scenery can enhance the flight simulation experience; in other words, which features (including dynamic modeling) might be emphasized? As you would imagine, the answer was "there always will be something for everyone" in the enormous variety of freeware and commercial offerings available. And in Ken Weik's presentation we enjoyed a most practical discussion and demonstration on creating AFCAD files using San Diego, California's Lindbergh International Airport (KSAN) as an example.

In Dr. Richard's presentation our focus shifted to real-world applications of desk-top simulation, in fact using Microsoft's FS as the platform to develop effective ship lighting for Navy pilots, particularly for helicopters and VTOL aircraft. I can only visualize our combat sim types drooling over the realistic pitching and rolling motion of these amazingly detailed ships in future simulation scenarios!

“Okay,” Jason asked, “Are you ready?”

That's the question Jason Hartmann put to Project Opensky's Warren Daniel as he took the controls of a Boeing 747-400 in the full motion simulator at United Air Lines Flight Center that AVSIM had arranged a few weeks ago. Warren and Jay Eklund (VA Pacific West Airways Senior Vice President, Denver Ops) were United's guest as one of the four 'crew' teams we selected to demonstrate how well their experience with FS2004 (doubtless flying Project Opensky's bird) prepared them to handle the real thing in United's simulator.

Sunday afternoon Jason Hartmann told us how these 'crews' did—now that the results are in we can share Warren's initial impressions (now posted at the Project Opensky forum). Here's an excerpt:

"I thought with my extensive sim and design background, my observer rides, and endless research, flying a 747-400 would be 'easy.' I figured I would be able to 'show off' my skills by touching down right on the threshold, rolling out, finishing braking, and turning on the taxiway for the United terminal, all without crossing Rwy 27L. Well folks, let me tell ya, I have a whole new level of respect for the people up front who have to do this for a living! For those of you who would think this is easy, IT IS NOT EASY. Checklists, procedures, aircraft systems…. There is so much to overwhelm you. And guess what, I haven’t even mentioned WEATHER or AIRCRAFT FAILURES yet. Everything is modeled, down to even the air conditioning in your face with the sound from the packs. The folks up front are highly trained—and off-the-shelf flight simulators do not capture all of this."

Jason is providing us with a transcrapt of his presentation together with the charts he developed from the crew's flight results. While we await that, I can tell you the results suggest the answer to the perennial question, "Could I step into a 747's cockpit if the crew were disabled and successfully land it?" is... a definite MAYBE. In good weather under normal conditions, yes! As we've mentioned elsewhere, United's engineers were more than impressed with the ease with which FS 'pilots' were able to familiarize themselves with the real aircraft's cockpit layout and controls and how well they could handle the plane in flight. But add a good crosswind, or attempt a visual approach in deterioriating weather and perhaps 3 'pilots' out of 5 would land "successfully" (i.e., one you and your passengers could walk away from, though the plane probably would be in the shop for awhile). Now add a 'fire emergency' during the approach, and the results—in every case—wouldn't be pretty. The exercise proved that we're just not attuned to handling exceptional conditions—the very thing for which the Airlines' simulators exist to prepare aircrews for. Justin put it quite humorously: "When I threw in the engine fire there were warning lights and messages on the EICAS, the FMC, etc., and even with the mechanical voice yelling "ENGINE FIRE" the crews blissfully proceeded with their landing approaches taking no further action. Well, at least one pulled the engine's fire handle, but it would have been helpful if he'd first shut it down."

How would you like to sit at the controls of one of the United Flight Center's full-motion simulators?

We did! AVSIM Chief Managing Editor Miro Majcen and I after a session in the B-747-400 simulator.

Though I've skipped over much that was presented, that's the gist of it. All the presentations were uniformly excellent, carefully prepared, and most of all, interesting. We'll be placing copies of presentation charts (most in MS PowerPoint format) and a few of the papers in our library; we'll be announcing those shortly. Comments or further questions you may have regarding these presentations should be addressed to me, Maurice Pratt, Conference presentations coordinator, and I should be able to get you in touch with specific individuals.

Oh yes... I'm looking forward to putting together next year's slate of presentations, and hope to see you there!

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