Pilatus Aircraft Engineering Flight Simulator
Pilatus Aircraft, located in the shadow of Mount Pilatus in beautiful Stans, Switzerland, has been building fine trainer, STOL and transport aircraft for over 60 years. The need to assemble the required elements of an in-house reconfigurable engineering simulation capability led them
to the review of D-Six as a candidate for the simulation environment.
D-Six was chosen as the flight model host environment for a number of reasons, ranging from cost to application flexibility. Since D-Six is optimized to operate at real time on the cost effective PC platform, Pilatus was able to extend their budget to include such additional
components as a Fokker electric stick loader. These were integrated into the software to provide a high fidelity simulation environment for the pilot.
The
flexible model development and model hosting features that D-Six provides
expedited the development and deployment of multiple simulation flight
models. The simulation and model complexity that Pilatus was able to
develop in a very short period of time (particularly when viewed in
a typical simulation development time scale!) was such that they were
able to accurately demonstrate the complex spin characteristics of a
particular trainer application. The fidelity of the simulation, along
with the simulation refinement they were able to achieve in the time
and money expended, was a testament to the company's engineers, as well
as to the flexibility of D-Six.
The
fact that this was done with no previous company simulation experience
is even more noteworthy. Besides providing configuration development
and flight test support, the simulation capability is also used to demonstrate
the flight characteristics of their aircraft to visitors as well. Potential
future updates include the change to D-Six native PC graphics, and the
continued incorporation of avionics hardware and software for even greater
fidelity of the operational experience. Please view the company's
web site for more information about this excellent airframe developer,
and look for pictures of the simulator under the Engineering tab.
Other D-Six Success Stories
Implementation of Wright Laboratory
F-16 MATV Simulation into D-Six
Application
of D-Six at Air Force Research Laboratory
Italian
AV-8B II+ Mission Simulator Aerodynamics Model Development
Fokker
Control Loading and Motion
Boeing
F-18 E/F Flight Control System Test Station
Utilization
of D-Six for ACAS Development
Boeing
F-18 E/F Flight Control System Test Station
Aerial
Refueling Application
