Full Motion Airbus A320 Simulator

[Christopher Low 5,353]

One of several videos on YouTube (you can see the hydraulics in motion, those Drzewiecki and Skalarki stickers on the outside, and also inside the simulator at Kai Tak)....

 

 

Edited December 18, 2021 by Christopher Low

[rich_cooke 4]

Quote

On 12/16/2021 at 7:20 PM, Christopher Low said:

Skalarki Electronics Ltd is the company that builds the A320 cockpit, and the Profiler appears to be some kind of software that works with it.

Skalarki Profiler is the interface between the Skalarki A320 hardware and the Prosim ( or some other) software.  I am fortunate to own a lot of Skalarki hardware and the Profiler works absolutely flawlessly with Prosim.  The Profiler can also be tailored by the user to their own requirements.  This is the Skalarki homepage.  

https://www.skalarki-electronics.com/en/

I am not connected with them other than as a customer but their hardware is fantastic.  As Christopher said its very robust and realistic and just like the real thing. Marcin (the owner) goes above and beyond on customer experience and solved an issue for me (entirely my error) over TeamViewer.  Thoroughly recommend them for Airbus hardware - if  its affordable to you.

Rich Cooke

Edited December 18, 2021 by rich_cooke
Spelling error

[jon b 2,047]

The visual in that simulator is certainly a lot better than the CAE 747 and 787 sims I use.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I always assumed that the simulators used to train real world pilots would have much better graphics than the software we all use on our PCs, but it sounds like the opposite is true. I am aware that the primary focus of full motion simulators needs to be the accuracy of the flight dynamics and systems, and also perfectly fluid motion. However, are you saying that the scenery (outside of airports) in the simulators that you use is no better (or worse) than default P3D scenery? If so, that is quite a surprise.

I have already mentioned that seeing default P3D scenery to represent the outside world was the one disappointing aspect of my recent experience in Manchester. Generic scenery like that has no relevance to the real world at all, and I am certain that an upgrade to ORBx TrueEarth scenery (even without any autogen trees and buildings) would be another massive step forward for the overall experience. After all, even though I also stated that I was concentrating a lot on the flight directors rather than looking out of the windows, it is worth remembering that the other participants (in the jump seats) will have ample time for scenery viewing.....and that is where realistic photographic scenery would pay big dividends.

Edited December 18, 2021 by Christopher Low

[neilhewitt 494]

21 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I always assumed that the simulators used to train real world pilots would have much better graphics than the software we all use on our PCs, but it sounds like the opposite is true. I am aware that the primary focus of full motion simulators needs to be the accuracy of the flight dynamics and systems, and also perfectly fluid motion. However, are you saying that the scenery (outside of airports) in the simulators that you use is no better (or worse) than default P3D scenery? If so, that is quite a surprise.

I guess the kind of training you do in the sim isn't heavily reliant on outside visual clues. I've seen videos from a few different actual training sims and the visual quality is very variable. I guess they aren't upgrading the software multiple times a year like us 🙂. Since you wouldn't generally VFR in a Level D sim, it's not like you need accurate depiction of landmarks, just the airports. I've seen a few pilots on Twitter saying that various home sims look better visually than the ones they train on.  

If you do a bit of digging online you will eventually find Web sites (and videos) for companies producing commercial sim systems including the image generation systems, and it seems like the ones for military use are generally visually more faithful to the real world (which is where P3D makes its money, after all); perhaps because combat pilots need to be able to see things to shoot at them 🙂.

[jon b 2,047]

well, the visuals have improved no end over the last few years. 
They used to be just textured green and browns for the ground, most of the time you’d be at night anyway.

More recently the visuals are a sort of orbx  true earth style but with lower resolution satellite imagery.

The airport environment has also become much better with lots of moving vehicles and even a little man that waves the pin at you

Its rare to actually have the time to look out of the window in the sim but on exercises like circling approaches the visual scenery is beneficial.

I was recently in the sim doing approaches into Boston and the approach over the sea and the harbour cranes was very good. 

Edited December 18, 2021 by jon b