Curt, in the ATC system, on what OS platform does FG run?
On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 10:26, Curtis Olson wrote: > I am still out of town for the rest of the week, but I thought I'd post > a quick report from the AOPA convention this past weekend in the LA area. > > I was there with ATC flight simulators to demo their ATC-610 upgrade > package which turns their old 100% analog ATC-610 into a new, modern > digital flight simulator using FG as the visual system, and the core > software infrastructure, along with proprietary software for the flight > dynamics and instructor station and their cockpit hardware. The new > system is FAA Level 3 FTD certifiable which is a lot tougher to get than > PC-ATD certification, and allows you to log more hours towards the > different ratings. > > The expo was 3 days long and there were a ton of people each day. Our > booth was generally a mob scene, often with several people waiting a > turn to fly. Interestingly because this was largly a "pilot" > convention, many people didn't want to fly and submit to the scrutiny > and smart alec commets of the "audience." But we got enough takers to > keep the sim busy. :-) Overwhelmingly the response to our sim (and > FlightGear) was very positive. We had endless people sit down and fly > the simulator. Over the course of the 3 days we continuously > repositioned the sim in new locations and situations, continually > changed weather and other conditions, had people crash into the ground, > etc. etc. I was very please to see our software ran rock solid the > entire time. We just fired up the sim at the beginning of the day and > left it run until they kicked us out in the evening ... it was rock > solid through everything we through at it. I was very pleased with the > results of this "stress test". > > Common questions and comments (beyond how much does the whole thing > cost) were: > > Is that running MSFS? (or what software are you running?) > > Are those real gauges? (we are using photo-based textures to draw > virtual instruments on an LCD display behind a panel cutout. Many > people came and left thinking they were real gauges. We even had one > guy come by and comment to his buddy, "Oh, they are using those gauges > from XYZ company." :-) > > People were impressed with the smoothness of the panel and the modeling > of the different systems and built in sensor errors. > > People were also impressed with the time of day modeling and > day/night/dusk effects. > > We had some people stop by that use simulators to train pilots to > transition from IFR in minimums to visual flying and *very* carefully > examined how much of the approach lighting system was actually visible > at specific visibility distances and at specific points of the approach > and seemed to think we were right on with those. > > We did a lot of demoing in the SFO area and people really liked the > building and bridge and other landmark models. > > I ran into Robin Peel of airport and navaid DB fame. There was a guy > standing there asking if we used FG for any of our software, he said > something about nav databases, I looked at his name tag which read > "Robin", he looked at my name tag, and we had one of those "aha!" type > moments. :-) The next day he released new nav/apt data. > > John Wojnaroski stopped by and it was good to finally meet him. I went > out to his place today in LA to see the 747 sim he is building in his > living room. > > Alex and Trisha Perry stopped by the last day and we really appreciated > their insistance on sticking around after the show to chip in on some of > the take down and clean up. > > We were near the Elite booth (who showed up with their igate product) > and back to back with the Precision Flight Controls booth. It was > interesting to compare our sim to our nearest "competitors". It was > also interesting to see them come check out our stuff and watch their > competitive/defensive mechanism kick in. :-) Like anything, everyone > has their strength's and weaknesses and their best target audience, but > it was very interesting to compare and see where each of us set the bar > in various areas. > > A lot of people asked about GPS modeling which we (and FlightGear) > really don't do a good job of yet. I know that Roy has started to work > on some gps internals, but it would be cool someday to be able to mimic > in flightgear the sorts of gps units people are putting in airplanes > these days ... such as the garmin 430/530. > > Another thing that a *lot* of people asked about was glass cockpits. > John W. has done some really good work on this front for his 747 > project, but it is kind of isolated and specific to his system. So this > is another area where there is a lot of interest, but FG is a bit weak. > > Overall we had a really good show and FG performed spectacularly. > Collectively I think we are doing some really good work that compares > very well with people that are doing this full time as their primary > business. And in a few areas we are totally kicking their butts which > is also kind of fun to see. :-) > > Best regards, > > Curt. _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel 2f585eeea02e2c79d7b1d8c4963bae2d
