| Air dragon himself |
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The house does not look like much on the eyes - a low brick building with minimal windows and a black door on the back, next to an empty parking lot. It is in Arsta, as you reach the quarter by metro and tram from central Stockholm. Once inside, it is much more exciting. The ground floor accommodates the small house three military aircraft, or at least parts of them. You just have to sit in the cockpit and fly away, simulator,
We are in the flight simulator club Swesim which started five years ago and housed in the premises in Arsta since 2008.
Currently we have about 90 active members, and it is really about two
different groups - one that is more technically minded and customizes,
screws and solder, and one who is more interested in flying, explains
Daniel Mattsson, Chairman of Swesim .
On weekdays, he is development manager at technology company, Mr.
Orange, with a focus on systems for travel agents. But privately he
flies well, both real light aircraft and simulators.
He says that Viggen simulator, simulating the model AJS-37, originally
is a real simulator for the military exercise by the association has
been transferred.
The dragon simulator has however been a real aircraft - a J35J who later
was stationed at F10 in Angelholm - the association helped to cut by
myself and converted to simulator.
Behind it stands a large piece of the body on a Lance J32B inbaxad and blocking half the room. It is the latest project that we just received. We will cut it off, but
it is a little mecca because there are a lot of electronics and cables
that we first have to identify before we can cut, says Mr Thompson.
The plane is the school version of the Lance, with room for two pilots who both have track stick. As in the other two, it is about simulators where you crawl into a real
cockpit and close the hood before starting to fly. They do not move in
flight, partly because it is a very expensive technology, partly because
the simulators always gives a small time delay, and the military with
quick maneuvers leads to motion sickness among the most experienced
pilots.
All three simulators owned much of the Air Force Museum in Linkoping,
because they are considered as war material and may not be owned
civilian. Beside them is a small open simulator that association has
built himself, who most resembles advanced computer game equipment with a
large screen.
The advantage is that you fly the airplane at any time in it, but you
can easily get in and out when you are working with systems around the
simulators, said Daniel Thompson.
But anyone who has more interest in civil aviation must climb down a
ladder. The association's basement is a fully built up the cockpit of a
Boeing 737-800 - an ordinary aircraft used by airlines such as SAS and
Ryanair.
Some details, such as joysticks, remains to be improving, but most of the buttons and controls are very lifelike. There are a lot of copies made by a company in Canada, which is almost
entirely accurate, but not certified, making them less than half as
expensive as the original, said Daniel Thompson.
Some details come directly from real airplanes, but it is hard to come by these days. Ten years ago you could go sightseeing including discarded airplanes and picking parts. Now everything is sold on Ebay. Naturally, he flies like the Boeing simulator to practice flying with two pilots.
I'm cruel flights interested - it's fun to practice all procedures and
train safety. Sometimes when there happened an accident, we can sit down
and try out how it happened, he says.
In front of the pilots is spreading an incredibly lifelike picture of
reality itself - from single items to the clouds in the sky, partly
thanks to software from Swedish Universal Technologies.
When we step into the plane is parked at a gate at the airport, and when
Daniel Mattson then takes us on a tour of the landscape feels very
bekant.Grundsystemen behind the simulator include Microsoft's
traditional software Flight Simulator adapted, for example, the visual
environment from just Arlanda .
The adaptation is sometimes time-consuming, especially in terms of military simulators. One must have the help of pilots who flew the plan because you can not
read the manuals how the aircraft performs in all speeds, explains
Daniel Mattsson.
And they exist in the association - including former pilots who now sit
and work in offices in the armed forces, and happy to take a
simulatortur free time to remember what it was like to fly.
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