ELITE 7

By Patrick Wanner (1 April 2002)

The Archer III on final approach to Zurich Kloten (LSZH) with runway 14 and PAPI in sight. The visibility is set to 2 1/4 statute miles or 3625m. This picture was taken with GenView deactivated.

Introduction

IFR flying is probably one of the most daunting areas in flying. For pilots with their private pilot's license in hand, the problem consists of adapting to the instrument environment, developing a consistent and efficient instrument scan, gaining situational awareness and generally being able to handle a higher workload than when flying VFR. Unfortunately, getting an IFR rating is only part of the problem: the instrument skills gained during the training leading up to the IFR check ride, must be honed and kept sharp. For frequently flying IFR pilots, this isn't a problem. The problem arises when someone isn't in a position to fly as often as would be required to remain proficient. This is where IFR simulators come into play. With the help of these simulators, you can learn and practice various maneuvers in the comfort of your own home. ELITE is one of the oldest IFR simulators around and has become the "classic" IFR trainer, being used and recommended at almost every flight school you can find. ELITE is currently in its seventh version and in this review, we're going to take a look at its general features and also at what's been improved in comparison to version 6.

System Requirements

To use ELITE without GenView, you need a computer with at least a Pentium 166 MHz, 32 MB RAM, 80 MB hard disk space, a 16 MB graphics card with 16-bit color support and DirectX 3 or higher drivers, a free USB port, a free serial port (for external hardware), a sound card, a mouse, a floppy drive and a CD-ROM drive. ELITE runs on Windows 98, 2000, NT 4.0 and XP.

ELITE is one of the few programs out there that still works on Macintosh computers. I didn't have the opportunity to test this capability, but I

The configuration screen
assume that ELITE works as well on the Macs as it does on PC's. To use ELITE on a Mac, you need at least a PPC-603e 66 MHz Processor, 64 MB RAM, 100 MB hard disk space, a 256 Color / 1024 x 768 resolution display, a free USB port, a free serial port for external ELITE hardware (if applicable), a mouse or similar pointing device, a sound card, a CD-ROM and a floppy disk drive for installation. If you don't have a floppy drive, the installation files can be e-mailed to you.

The requirements for GenView are a bit steeper than ELITE alone. You need at least a PII 450 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 700 MB hard disk space and a 32 MB graphics card with OpenGL support. Otherwise the requirements are identical to those of ELITE alone. GenView doesn't run on Macs.

The testbed is a P4 1.7 GHz with 512MB RDRAM, a 60GB hard disk, a Geforce 3 Ti200 graphics card with 64MB and Windows XP Professional. ELITE runs completely fluidly on this machine both with and without GenView activated. Having previously used ELITE also on a slower machine, with specifications similar to the published minimum settings, I found that setup to run ELITE perfectly without GenView. As soon as it was activated though, it became clear that the machine was at the lower end of the performance spectrum. I concluded that although the CPU is a performance-influencing factor, the graphics card makes by far the bigger difference. If you're planning to run GenView on a lower-end machine, I would recommend getting a fast graphics card and after that, only if necessary, upgrading your CPU and RAM.

ELITE / GenView

Previously, the concept of ELITE was that, since it is an instrument trainer, out-of-the-window visuals were unnecessary. With version 6,

The control screen

Initiative Computing changed that philosophy and recognized that there are areas, even in an IFR simulator, where 3D terrain is important. Hence, GenView was born: it provided ELITE with 3D terrain, basic scenery and improved weather modeling. With version 7, Initiative Computing has combined ELITE and GenView, to make an integral product with strong instrument training capabilities, but which also permits controlled flight into terrain and rudimentary VFR flight. Despite the combination of the two product lines, they've remained separated at the program level and you can choose to use ELITE with or without GenView. It must be noted however, that the newest GenView-specific features (3D terrain and METAR downloads) are only available when GenView is used.

Aircraft

With version 7, a new pricing structure has been implemented. ELITE is subdivided into four categories: Core, Pilot, Twins and Career. Depending on which version of ELITE you purchase, the following aircraft are included:

Core: Cessna 172R

Pilot: Cessna 172R, Cessna 182S, Cessna 172P, Mooney M20J, Bonanza A36, Archer III, Arrow IV

Twins: Seneca III, Baron B58

Career: King Air B200 and the MD-81 jet (release expected in Spring 2002)

Please note that all of these aircraft, with the exception of the Cessna 172P and Arrow IV, have high-resolution (1024x768) panels. We will discuss this in more detail under "Panels".

The malfunctions screen
It isn't really clear how ELITE's flight models are done. According to Initiative Computing, they are "real-time" and are based on actual in-flight measurements. This seems like a bit of a contradiction however, since if the flight model used real-time flow calculations, there would be no need for actual flight data. Whichever method they're using, it isn't able to simulate extreme situations (such as at the edge of the flight envelope) and there are even oddities within the normal flight regime (such as the ground handling with crosswinds present). That said, you also have to consider the intended use of ELITE: it's meant to be used for instrument training and not for procedures or maneuvers training. Although the flight models may not be totally accurate, they simulate their real-life counterparts sufficiently to provide a reasonable simulation, allowing the user to concentrate on the flying instead of the flight model.

Two new features of version 7 are fuel imbalance and structural icing. With fuel imbalance enabled, you will have to manage your fuel tanks and switch them regularly to keep them in balance: if you don't, the resulting weight difference of the tanks will influence the center of gravity and thus how the aircraft flies. With structural icing activated, you will have to avoid possible icy conditions if you want to avoid structural icing. It would be nice if Initiative Computing could add more forms of icing in their next version, for instance propeller, engine and pitot icing.

Panels

ELITE's instrument panels are all photo-realistic and nothing short of works of art. All the gauges are sharp and the instruments move fluidly, permitting precise instrument flight. As mentioned above, all the aircraft, with the exception of the Cessna 172P and Arrow IV, have

The map screen, with profile and extended views enabled. Note the terrain in the profile view and how you can see your configuration (gear / flaps) in the extended view.

high-resolution panels which display at 1024x768. The hi-res panels not only have the advantage of displaying crisper instruments, but also of providing more features than the lower-resolution ones: they include more buttons, switches, etc., but most importantly, the option of using a GPS.

ELITE ships with a whole series of GPS', including the Trimble 2000 Approach Plus and the whole Apollo GX series (GX 50, 55, 60, 65). All of these GPS' contain the original source code from their manufacturers and are thus perfect replicas of their real-life counterparts.

All the aircraft have the basic instruments (OBS, ADF, DG, etc.) and a two-axis KAP 150 autopilot. The more advanced aircraft have the option to use a more sophisticated instrument set (RMI, HSI, etc.), the more powerful KFC 150 autopilot with a flight director function (V-bar), an altitude / vertical speed selector and a radio altimeter with altitude alert.

In case you want to use specific instruments or types of instruments, you can customize your panel in the Configuration screen. Among others, the options include what kinds of gyros, RMI's / ADF's, altimeters and GPS' you want.

There isn't much to say about the panels, except that ELITE's instruments (especially the artificial horizon) could move a bit more fluidly. Make no mistake, their movement isn't jerky, but when compared to X-Plane's instruments, they don't seem quite as fluid.

Weather

The METAR download dialog box. After clicking on Download the latest weather is downloaded and enabled in ELITE.

In ELITE there are three kinds of weather models: static, dynamic and METAR-based. You can enable or disable these weather types in the logically laid-out Meteo and Metar screens of the program.

Static weather will, as the name suggests, remain the same over time. You can create three cloud and wind layers and modify the parameters for the temperature and air pressure. Dynamic weather will change over a pre-defined period of time in a way the user can specify. For instance, you could have the pressure drop by 5 hPa during a period of 55 minutes, the visibility increase by four miles in 40 minutes and so on. This is quite handy for creating interesting scenarios with rapidly changing weather. The downside is that the created weather is only time-bound: if the weather deteriorates en-route, diverting to your alternate airport will serve no purpose, since the "dynamic" weather is propagated throughout the whole digital world in ELITE. This is where the METAR weather comes into play. ELITE has the capability of downloading and using METAR data. This feature was first introduced with GenView a couple of years back and although GenView has been integrated into ELITE, the METAR feature remains GenView-specific. This means that users who don't wish to use GenView will not be able to use real-time weather.

Downloading METAR weather into ELITE is quite simple: just go to the Metar screen and click on the D-LOAD button. The latest weather will then be downloaded and enabled in ELITE. Unfortunately, ELITE lacks an automatic weather download feature, so the term "real-time weather" isn't that appropriate, since the user would have to manually download the weather each hour to actually get the latest weather and thus a continuous flow of real-time weather. Once you have the weather activated though, the meteorological world of ELITE livens up and becomes truly dynamic. ELITE will interpolate the weather data in between all of the downloaded

METAR information can be viewed by clicking on any reporting station.
reporting stations and the weather becomes both location and time-bound.

ELITE's training-oriented design becomes quite clear here, as it's possible to save the downloaded METAR files, METAR situations and METEO situations, thus facilitating the recreation of interesting or challenging flights.

The generated weather itself is for the most part irreproachable and has the effects one would expect on the aircraft. In GenView, cloud layers additionally appear at the correct altitudes and reflect the selected density (scattered, broken, overcast, etc.). One thing that stands out though, is that precipitation in general is not simulated. Although it's possible to set up the weather parameters such that, in real-life, there would be precipitation, none will be generated in ELITE. I'm referring more to the effects of precipitation on the flight model than to the visual effects of raindrops and such on the windscreen. Although ELITE is an instrument trainer, I think that precipitation that influences the flight-dynamics would have a legitimate place in the simulator.

Malfunctions

Being able to fly proficiently on instruments means that you can do so not only in all weather conditions but also on partial panel and with system failures. It is important that an IFR simulator has the capability to program malfunctions. ELITE excels in this respect: it gives the user enough options to practice all partial panel and the most common system failure scenarios. As with the weather, there are multiple modes of failures. You can specify specific instruments to fail immediately or within a given time or you can specify certain categories of failures (i.e. instruments, systems, gear / flaps, engines) to occur a certain

The Meteo screen with some dynamic weather programmed.

number of times randomly within a given timeframe. All of these modes work well and should satisfy most users' needs. One thing I would have appreciated is to have much longer times for the random failures. For instance for engine failures: the maximum time is 99 minutes, so if you have engine failures selected and make a two hour flight, you're guaranteed to have an engine failure in-flight. It would be nice if the times were longer and failure information were carried over from session to session, so that you could have, say an engine failure every 500 hours. As a side note, the malfunctions can also be saved to disk in ELITE, which is a great time-saving feature.

Map screen

The most important requirement for an IFR trainer is the ability not only to fly procedures, but also to analyze them. Already back in the days of ELITE 3 and the MDM-100, ELITE had, what I found to be the most intuitive and feature-rich map screen. This is in my opinion still the case: ELITE's map screen is still the best one around.

In the map screen you can view all of the airports, navaids, airways and, in GenView or RealView, all of the major bodies of water included in the database. By clicking on any navaid, you immediately get all of the pertinent information, including coordinates, frequency, elevation, current METAR data (if applicable) etc.. Aircraft positioning is also accomplished via the map screen. It's a very easy process: you can either drag the aircraft to your desired location or enter which airport or radial you wish to move it to. Then modify the heading, altitude and speed boxes and you're set. Some other nice features include the ability to create a route right from the map screen and the point-and-click speed, time & distance calculations.

At about the same position in the Seneca III with GenView activated.
After flying maneuvers in the simulator, you can view your path on the map screen. There are various ways of doing this. You can load the profile view (side view of your flight path) and analyze your flight data (airspeed, altitude, vertical speed, heading, configuration, etc.) for any point of your flight path. You can also load the replay mode and view any portion of your flight. The replay mode has multiple replay speeds and there are various modes which you can choose from to show the information you find pertinent: profile view (a side-view of your flight path, which also shows you the profile of the terrain you were flying over at that time), extended view (provides extra visual information about your configuration during the replay) and the instrument view. This last feature is new to version 7 and deserves some extra explanation. When enabled, you will see all of your primary flight and navigation instruments (airspeed indicator, attitude indicator, HSI, altimeter, VSI, RMI and OBS) on the map screen and during the replay, they will update in real-time. This feature is quite useful. It's more intuitive seeing the instruments rather than raw data during the replay and students can gain additional situational awareness by seeing their position on the map and how the instruments relate to their location.

Simulator Configuration

The simulator can be configured in the Control and Configuration screens. In the control screen, the user can change the time of day, date, visual detail, various aircraft flight parameters (heading, altitude, airspeed), loading, and fuel. He can also load various state and situation files. In the configuration screen you can change ELITE's hardware configuration and various aircraft-specific settings, including which aircraft module you want to use, what kind of digits you want the avionics to have and, as previously mentioned, what kinds of instruments you want to use.

In the A36 on the ILS approach to Zurich's runway 16, with the autopilot activated in approach mode. Note the Apollo GX60 GPS, flight director and radar altimeter.

Navigation Database

ELITE uses a combination of FAA and Jeppesen navigation databases: for the US the FAA database is used and for the rest of the world the Jeppesen data. The resulting database covers all registered NAVAIDS and runways longer than 2000' in the world. The FAA database is quite recent, being dated to September 2001. The Jeppesen database however is dated to December 2000, which is old, even for a simulator. Luckily any changes which have occurred since can also be updated in the simulator (more on that later, under "Modifying the simulator"). Still, it would be nice to have a more up-to-date Jeppesen NAVDATA database.

Modifying The Simulator

Simulators, even when they ship with "current" data, become outdated fast as far as the NAVDATA is concerned. With many simulators, it's quite a tedious process to add or change NAVAIDs. In ELITE, you can open up the Modification screen and make your changes there. Like all of the other operations in ELITE, it's a totally point-and-click process. Previously modified waypoints or airports are marked red, which makes it easier to see what you've changed and what not. A nice feature would be the ability to save and load "modification files". Thus you could, for instance, download someone's modifications for the northeast US for 2001. Though it is possible to send someone your modified database file, that person would lose any other modifications he has made to that database. The ability to handle modification files would be very desirable in the next version of ELITE.

FAA Certification

In the Mooney M20J, just before touchdown, showing off GenView's realistic night lighting.

ELITE was one of the first simulators to receive FAA certification: in 1997 it was granted certification for 10 hours towards an instrument rating. Since then, many other countries and aviation authorities have adopted the concept of computer-based trainers and ELITE has gained acceptance in the European Union (JAR / JAA), Switzerland, Denmark, Austria, Fiji and Australia.

In order to use ELITE as a PC-ATD (Personal Computer-based Aviation Training Device), you need to use AC61-126-approved hardware. At the very least, this means using the certified ELITE yoke, Flight Link hydraulic rudder pedals, an ELITE AP-2000 avionics panel and an ELITE MEL throttle quadrant. The price of such a system would be in the $2500 range. The higher-end iGATE systems include a cockpit enclosure with a digital instrument panel replica, high-quality yokes and pedals, an avionics panel with actual readouts and even wrap-around 3D visuals powered by RealView. These systems are most likely out the reach of normal users, wishing to train IFR maneuvers, but when comparing their rental prices to those of real aircraft, they are very cost-effective solutions.

It's noteworthy that ELITE 7 is exactly the same software as used in the ELITE FAA-certified PC-ATD's. It's not a cut-down version. Even when used without certified hardware, it is an extremely powerful program.

Miscellaneous Features

IFR training alone can already be demanding, but for a true test of your abilities, an IFR flight in an ATC-controlled environment is called for. With ELITE, it's possible to load ATC scenarios. You will be vectored around for the approach, landing and eventually missed-approach to a whole variety of airports. ELITE's ATC engine uses pre-recorded voices and

Photo courtesy of Elite Simulation Solutions.

continuously plays background ATC chatter. Unfortunately, ATC won't adapt to your flying, so if you get off-route, it will be your responsibility to get back onto course, as ATC will not change your vectors. These scenarios are a lot of fun to fly but it's a pity that they're only available for a small selection of airports. According to Initiative Computing, no further scenarios are planned in the near future. It would be good if an SDK were released, so that users could make their own scenarios.

Quite a unique feature in ELITE is its multi-monitor support. This allows you to set up a separate instructor's station, for real-time monitoring of a student's flight path. To use this feature however, you need to have a computer with a Pentium 233 MHz, 64 MB RAM, a graphics card with dual-monitor capability and Windows 98, 2000 or XP. The Mac requirements are a PPC-603e 180MHz, 64MB RAM, a display capable of 1024 x 768 resolution, a second video card with dual monitor capability and Mac OS system 8.0 or higher. It's also possible to use GenView in a multi-monitor setup, but for it to work, you need more advanced hardware: a PIII 500 MHz, 128 MB RAM, 700 MB hard disk space, a graphics card with an nVidia chipset (TNT2 or GeForce) and either Windows 2000 or Windows XP. As previously mentioned, GenView doesn't work on Macs and it thus isn't possible to set up a multi-monitor GenView system on a Mac.

One new feature in ELITE is 3D sound. I wasn't able to test it, due to a lack of the required hardware. According to the documentation accompanying ELITE, flap, gear and engine sounds will emanate from the correct spatial locations.

Technical Support

However well a program works, chances are that you're going to call tech

Photo courtesy of ELITE simulation Solutions.

support some time or other. I have found that Initiative Computing (Europe) and ELITE Simulation Solutions (USA) both provide excellent support. They have always proven to not only provide concise answers to my questions, but also to do so in a very friendly manner. In the US you can get support in English and Spanish, in Europe, support is available in English, German and French. This caliber of technical support is quite rare in this industry, and I am glad that ELITE is backed by such expertise.

Conclusion

I purchased my first version of ELITE years ago, back when version 3 was current. Back then, there were really only two choices, MDM's FS-100 or ELITE. I chose ELITE due to its fantastic point-and-click interface and its superior map screen. Nowadays things have changed a lot and the flight simulation industry isn't as clear-cut as it was before. Now you can go to your nearest CompUSA and buy yourself a $50 simulator with stunningly complete and photo-realistic panels, breathtaking 3D scenery, interactive ATC and much, much more. The panels, in fact, look so realistic, that you may wonder why you should pay hundreds of dollars more for something seemingly inferior. Couldn't you get by just fine with that other simulator's IFR panels? Yes, you probably could, but you would be making your training much more difficult and inefficient than it has to be. ELITE was conceived with instrument students and pilots in mind. Almost every detail pertinent to instrument training has been included and tuned optimally. Instead of concentrating on how to fly the quirky aircraft, learning how to use the new GPS and trying to analyze your flight path with the rudimentary tools included in most other programs, with ELITE you can concentrate on the flying and on the analysis of your flight.

The map screen with replay mode activated, showing off ELITE's instrument replay feature.
ELITE isn't a perfect program. It can and ought to be improved in some areas. Nevertheless, in the end fulfills its purpose as an instrument trainer very well. I consider ELITE not only to be an excellent IFR simulator but probably to be the best one out there at the moment. I recommend it to anyone wishing to acquire or train his IFR skills.

For more information on ELITE, please refer the following websites and phone numbers:

In the U.S.A.:

ELITE Simulation Solutions
672 N. Semoran Blvd.
Suite #104
Orlando, FL 32807
U.S.A.

Telephone: (800) 557 7590 or (407) 277 7700 outside of the U.S.A.
Fax: (888) 269 1120 or (407) 277 7623
Web site: http://www.flyelite.com

In Europe:

Initiative Computing AG Switzerland
Wiesentalstrasse 4
CH-8185 Winkel
Switzerland

Telephone: (0041) 1 861 05 61
Fax: (0041) 1 861 05 63
Web site: http://www.flyelite.ch

Patrick Wanner
patrick@dmarch.com

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