Hi everyone,

Twoo weeks ago I purchased the Oculus Rift, the immersion is realy good! But I'm also a real life student pilot, I started last year my PPL flying lesson (that I took in pause because I had some troubles) but when I was flying and the air was turbulent, I was quickly sick, so here is my first question, do you think (or know somebody) that was sick or taken by motion sickness and who with the help of a motion simulator + the VR headset was helped to be more resistant against turbulent air in real life? This is my main question, because if thanks to that combo I can resolve my problem of being sick quickly, to be honest even if that cost me the half of my PPL, it's maybe the only way to follow my dream so I'll do.

My other questions is for those who have a motion simulator, do you have any to recommand me? I found those two on the internet

The first is my favorite, the DOFReality V3, it seems realy good, solid, serious, good quality, not expensive (I thought it will be mooooooore) and I just have to buy a seat and it's complete, I already have a TM Wharthog and a TM Tx wheel (for racing sim) 

http://dofreality.com/   http://dofreality.com/motion-simulator-overview/

The second one is a french-made sim, but on this one, it's more expensive, and I don't have the yaw movement, so I'll have some interest on this one only if it's moooore resistant than the first one

http://www.prosimu-shop.com/fr/simulator-t1000/53-t1000.html

Is there someone here who owns one of those and is able to tell me if they are good??

 

Regards :) 

Have a good sunday

 

Airsickness:

I was a professional pilot for over 30 years before I retired and initially suffered from airsickness. You get used to it. The more you fly, the less you'll be affected by it.

One of the reasons why I haven't gone for VR (apart, primarily, from the low resolution) is that it made me feel a little queasy if I manoeuvred a lot (not uncommon with VR). If you're susceptible to airsickness, VR can affect you in this way but, if you persist with it, could be a cheaper way to improve your resistance to general motion sickness. What VR can't replicate is the jiggling around that your inner ears experience in turbulence which is what tends to make you feel unwell.

Domestic motion platforms:

I worked in a commercial full-motion simulator for 3 years. What makes them effective at conveying the sense that you're really flying is that you're sitting in a fully enclosed cockpit which moves with you with no external references except for what you see on the displays. The simulator relies on the combination of clever motion inputs and what your eyes see to fool your other senses. Once you can see the room around you, your normal senses take over and the illusion is gone. For instance, in a full-size simulator, when you roll into a turn the motion platform moves initially (often the opposite way to what you'd expect to simulate the inertia of your body) as the horizon on the display moves but then slowly returns to neutral once you're established in the turn so that there are no more lateral accelerations. The domestic platforms I've seen move when you roll but stay rolled which feels wrong because you continue to feel that sideways input which doesn't happen in flight (if you're in balance, of course). Plus, because you can see that the room around you hasn't moved, your brain knows that you're not actually flying. The other thing which spoils the illusion is that, usually, the display is stationary whilst the platform moves. Domestic platforms work better for racing sims but are not very convincing for flying. My personal opinion is that they're not worth the money. You'd be better off just building a box around you and the screen - that's what fixed-base simulators in the real world do and it's surprisingly effective.

You don't mention the option of full motion in VR...........

 

1 hour ago, vortex681 said:

Airsickness:

I was a professional pilot for over 30 years before I retired and initially suffered from airsickness. You get used to it. The more you fly, the less you'll be affected by it.

One of the reasons why I haven't gone for VR (apart, primarily, from the low resolution) is that it made me feel a little queasy if I manoeuvred a lot (not uncommon with VR). If you're susceptible to airsickness, VR can affect you in this way but, if you persist with it, could be a cheaper way to improve your resistance to general motion sickness. What VR can't replicate is the jiggling around that your inner ears experience in turbulence which is what tends to make you feel unwell.

Domestic motion platforms:

I worked in a commercial full-motion simulator for 3 years. What makes them effective at conveying the sense that you're really flying is that you're sitting in a fully enclosed cockpit which moves with you with no external references except for what you see on the displays. The simulator relies on the combination of clever motion inputs and what your eyes see to fool your other senses. Once you can see the room around you, your normal senses take over and the illusion is gone. For instance, in a full-size simulator, when you roll into a turn the motion platform moves initially (often the opposite way to what you'd expect to simulate the inertia of your body) as the horizon on the display moves but then slowly returns to neutral once you're established in the turn so that there are no more lateral accelerations. The domestic platforms I've seen move when you roll but stay rolled which feels wrong because you continue to feel that sideways input which doesn't happen in flight (if you're in balance, of course). Plus, because you can see that the room around you hasn't moved, your brain knows that you're not actually flying. The other thing which spoils the illusion is that, usually, the display is stationary whilst the platform moves. Domestic platforms work better for racing sims but are not very convincing for flying. My personal opinion is that they're not worth the money. You'd be better off just building a box around you and the screen - that's what fixed-base simulators in the real world do and it's surprisingly effective.

Thank you for your answer, it's good to know

 

But I was thinking about use the sim with the VR headset, so that's maybe better? Like on the video that HiFlyer is showing us, so I was thinking that like on a real plane, I'll feel the bumps and also see what I see when I actually flying

The Brunner system certainly looks impressive. It's appears to be much closers to a real sim motion platform than the other available products. I'd be interested to see how much it costs - I suspect it'll be way beyond what most people can afford.

Starts at about $60,000. Ouch. The DofReality H6 or P6 is about $4,000 all in. Pretty impressive price for what you get. The secret, other than Ukranian economics is the motors rather than linear actuators. Makes a lot of sense. You can get 60' per second rate of motion and about 20' away from vertical in any direction which again is more than enough.

 

1 hour ago, MarkJHarris said:

The DofReality H6 or P6 is about $4,000 all in. Pretty impressive price for what you get.

But it will stand or (likely) fall on what you don't get. Like FFB controls, these things are only as good as the software. As @vortex681 has suggested, the sim needs to very cleverly drive the motion hardware to create the best illusions in any given situation. I don't know which sim the OP intends to use, or whether that sim even has a motion-platform API, but even if it does it's unlikely to be very refined. I would be very careful before chucking $4.5K on a bucnh of hardware without being very clear about what  it's actually going to be able to deliver. From the pictures I'd guess the 'dofreality' stuff is geared towards racing sims and that it will support a few of the higher-profile driving sims specifically. I'd expect everything else (including all flights sims) to be generic at best.

It supports P3D, FSX, DCS so the software is not too bad. In my case, the main problem is weight. 6kg for Brunner pedals, same again for the yoke. Doesn't leave a lot left for me...... 

 

As for my laptop. Running the Brunner software, the Simtools software plus the Oculus and finally the sim itself..... we'll see.

Edited December 3, 20196 yr by MarkJHarris