Full flight simulator (FFS) is a term used by national (civil) aviation authorities (NAA) for a high technical level of

flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

. Such authorities include the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

(FAA) in the United States and the

European Aviation Safety Agency The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Commission with responsibility for civil aviation safety in the European Union. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs inve ...

(EASA). There are currently four levels of full flight simulator, levels A through D, with level D being the highest standard and being eligible for zero flight time (ZFT) training of civil pilots when converting from one airliner type to another. In about 2012, these FFS levels will be changed as a result of work by an international working group chaired by the UK Royal Aeronautical Society Flight Simulation Group (RAeS FSG), which rationalised 27 previous categories of flight training device into 7 international ones. This work has been accepted by ICAO and is published under ICAO document 9625 Issue 3. The new Type 7 Full Flight Simulator will be the old Level D with enhancements in a number of areas including motion, visual and Communications/air traffic simulations. A Level D/Type 7 simulator simulates all aircraft systems that are accessible from the flight deck and are critical to training. For instance, accurate force feedback for the pilot's flight controls is provided through a simulator system called "control loading", and other systems such as avionics, communications and "glass cockpit" displays are also simulated. This standard of simulator is used both for initial and recurrent training for commercial air transport (CAT) aircraft. Initial training is for conversion to a new aircraft type, and recurrent training is that which all commercial pilots must carry out at regular intervals (such as every six months) in order to retain their qualification to fly "fare-paying passengers" in CAT aircraft, loosely "airliners". A Level D/Type 7 FFS also provides motion feedback to the crew through a motion platform upon which the simulator cabin is mounted. The motion platform must produce accelerations in all of the

six degrees of freedom Six degrees of freedom (6DOF), or sometimes six degrees of movement, refers to the six mechanical degrees of freedom of movement of a rigid body in three-dimensional space. Specifically, the body is free to change position as forward/backw ...

(6-DoF) that can be experienced by a body that is free to move in space, using a principle called

acceleration onset cueing Acceleration onset cueing is a term for the Sensory cue, cueing principle used by a flight simulator, simulator motion platform. Motion platforms used in "Level D" full flight simulators (FFS) and equivalent military simulators have six jacks ...

, generally using the

Stewart platform A Stewart platform is a type of parallel manipulator that has six prismatic joint, prismatic actuators, commonly hydraulic jacks or electric linear actuators, attached in pairs to three positions on the platform's baseplate, crossing over to thr ...

design.

Visual system

Visual systems of full flight simulators are typically based on the

cross-cockpit collimated display A cross-cockpit collimated display (CCCD) is a display system used in full flight simulators (FFS) to provide the crew with a high-fidelity out-the-window view of the simulated environment around the aircraft. It is called ''cross-cockpit collima ...

concept, in which the computer-generated out-the-window view is projected on the back of a translucent screen. The image that forms on the other side is then reflected by a curved mirror that extends around the entire cockpit, providing a field of view that can reach 200° horizontally and 40° vertically. The

collimating A collimated beam of light or other electromagnetic radiation has parallel rays, and therefore will spread minimally as it propagates. A laser beam is an archetypical example. A perfectly collimated light beam, with no divergence, would not di ...

design of the mirror gives the occupants a realistic impression of three-dimensionality when looking at distant objects.

References

{{Reflist Flight training

Visual system

See also

References