At the risk of correction (and this is fascinating stuff, thanks, Keith) - the pedals move in two axes - swivel to the left or right around a central point for steering, and then push down with the toes (like in a car) for braking on the left and right side bogeys.

At the top of the pedal is a brake........(if I'm remembering correctly)

Brakes
 

The aircraft and sims have 2 kinds of brakes, auto-brakes and toebrakes. In auto the brakes are applied automatically to a set point by a knob on the panel. Toebrakes are at the top of the rudder pedals and are applied with pressure from toes to the tops of the rudder pedals. They are tricky. You have to apply even pressure to the both rudder pedals to keep the plane going straight and to the tops of the pedals to keep the plane stopping straight.
Keith

Location
 

All Delta sims are in ATL. We have 3 Full Flight sim buildings and a Ground Training Center which has CAPT's & FTD's.
Keith

Toebrakes---that's the name I was looking for----and yes, they are very tricky.

CAPT's & FTD's???

Was on a (non-dl) flight tonight into BGM and little johnny flying the plane needed to go spend some more time in the sim.....he was almost as bad at the foot thing as I was *smile*. He was all over the runway, and his taxi'ing was HORRID.

Now my pilot into DTW was a pro, smoothest landing I have ever had, not even sure at one point we actually touched down it was so smooth

Not enitrely sure about CAPTs but FTD are Fixed Training Devices i.e. they have have no motion platform.

Just a small correction to some information above... Evans & Sutherland provided some of the more recent visuals (probably the ones seen by Lehava et al). The Evans & Sutherland simulation business was aquired by Rockwell Collins during May last year. I believe Rediffusion was ultimately aquired by Thales.

Hi, knfenimore, I'm an engineer who used to work for CAE and several other flight simulator manufacturers.

It’s called 6 degrees of Freedom, not because there are 6 hydraulic rams supporting the simulator, but because the simulator can move on 6 axes: Pitch, Yaw, Roll, Front-Back, Left-Right & up & down. These are the degrees (or axes) of freedom. Many much older simulators were only 3 DOF: Pitch, Yaw, Roll.

P.S. Have you even seen what happens when one of the hydraulic pipes comes loose from the RAM under pressure? I have, and you don't want to be anywhere near it!!

:eek: Hence the desire to move onto electric motion bases.

From Montreal to FLL. I guess the cold up there was getting a bit much huh?:D ;)

Capt Ftd
 

CAPT is a Computer Assisted Procecureal Trainer. Basically flick switches and look at various aircraft systems. FTD Flight Training Device. It has controls and nav computers. Basically a scaled down sim. FFS is Full Flight Sim and accurately simulates the aircraft type it is programmed for.
The new Rockwell Collins visual system was installed on one our simulators for sales presentations. Very impressive. It produced HD graphics with its new image generator. It used LCOS "Liquid Crystal On Silicon" projectors for display. No 3 color alignments. The only maintenance would be replacing the $300 light bulbs.
We used to have 3 degree trainers that were made in the late 60's, 727,DC8, DC9. Of course all these have gone the way of the Gooney bird.
The new electric motion sounds great. No more hydraulic fluid. No more cleaning up under the sims or around the pump. Plus you have less pollution, no waste fluid. I'm sure it uses less electricity than 2 or 3 motion pumps and a control loading pump.

Another question I dreamed up while stuck in the back of the plane *smile*. Do FA's go through any sim training? In case of an emergency do they have any basic knowledge of how to work some of the systems up there in Oz *grin*.

BTW Keith, have to thank you guys again. I was telling a pilot on my flight home Fri about my experience (he was non-reving) and I have to tell you I was as giddy telling him as I was that day. You guys have no clue the impact you had!!!!

Anyone want to sponsor me going to flight school?

No.

Oh come on you know you would just love to be sitting in cattle class and hear "captain lehava from the flight deck....."

I truly enjoyed switching the roles of Captain and First Officer with you in the cockpit, Lehava...

...but would it be worth jeopardizing 130 to 200 lives just to be able to hear that announcement? And what if there is a thunderstorm? Are you going to make me take over the controls again?

Regardless, knfenimore was absolutely correct:That was the most difficult part for me during the entire flight simulation experience.