Need advice -- building a simulator

[treusser]

I'm a software developer working in the research section of a large company that does lots of work in avionics. We've set up a flight simulator in one of our labs that's powered by fs2002. We're using the Matrox Parhelia card coupled with 2 lcd projectors to create a tiled display. We've set up a glass cockpit with 2 15" LCD panels displaying custom instrumention (written by yours truly, hehe) that we're testing. We're also using several of the GoFlight modules.
Here's what I need help with: I've been told that we have a lot of money in the till that can be used for the simulator. If you guys had an unlimited budget, what would you buy? I need to know what's available out there and I know you guys would have a better handle on it than I do.

Thanks for the help!

-Trent

[wsieffert]

What are you planning to do with the simulator once it is finished, use it for research, sell it to some flight school, etc?

What are the expectations of it actually simulating a real aircraft?

W. Sieffert

[treusser]

I doubt it will ever be finished. It's going to be a work in progress from now till eternity, as we continue to update it with the latest hardware/software or change it around for the next experiment.

Right now, we're going to use it to evaluate the usefullness of various displays we design. We'll be running several airline pilots through it and evaluating their performace in several areas. From that we can tell what components of our displays are better than the "baseline". Fidelity is not the highest priority because we're not simming a specific aircraft -- in fact, for some tests, we use a large airliner flight model and for others we use a single engine turbo prop.

-T

[wsieffert]

In that case, I have no recommendations.

W. Sieffert

[atoepper]

I put together a little list of stuff to get with prices on my homepage:

http://www.simpit.de

check the project page.

regards, andreas

[Icarus747]

LAST EDITED ON Feb-28-03 AT 11:00AM (EST)[p]Go flight stuff is killer. Also the new FMS pad from PFC, but those people can be tough to deal with.

www.cyberwitt.com/pilotshop Best prices on the net for GOFLIGHT Hardware!

Also I'm a 3000 hour ATP with over 22 years of flight sim experience. I'd be interested in talking to you about "running through" your sim.