Excellent, thank you for the detail. I'll look into your links and play around
a little more. Once I build up a few more posts, I'll get in touch via PM.

 

Cubdriver, that was a great informative post. I've been working with CAE-manufactured simulators, and here's a little bit of information I can pass along from my experience.

Most simulators of aircraft with advanced avionics / glass cockpits use the actual aircraft hardware boxes to interface with the simulation. CAE's newer 5000 series simulators don't actually have as much of the "behind the scenes" hardware... they emulate the entire function of each component and its input/output strictly through computer programming code. As long as it's done correctly, the crew doesn't know any different since the cockpit hardware remains the same.

Along with the switch to a Moog electric motion platform instead of hydraulic, apparently it's less expensive to build and operate the sim. How they do all that technically is amazing to me.

 

Sounds good. By the way, you inspired me to buy the J.M. Rolfe book entitled "Flight Simulation" on the other page, which came in the mail today. This is exactly the book I think you are loking for. I paid $14 for mine used, great deal. It goes over your questions in detail. I don't think the other book is of any value for you since it talks about visuals mainly, and you are more interested in controls and instruments.

On another subject, I said why don't you get a copy of Matlab from The MathWorks, Inc. and try to do some simulation on your own computer and see how things work. Unless you are really determined, I would have to take that advice back because it turns out fresh copies are several hundred bucks for even the student version. I am kicking myself because I had a copy at one point and it appears I either lost it in a move (not likely) or loaned it to someone who did not bother to return it.

So I would recommend waiting until you have read the Rolfe book to buy Matlab, and you may even want to put it off until you have a chance to enroll in a controls lab course at an engineering school before you go for Matlab. There are other ways to run flight-sim engines such as C and C++, so bear that in mind as well. Matlab is in fact based on C.

 

Is this one? I am not sure I have seen one.

Moog platform

 

I'm not a simulator engineer; however, I've spent over 15 years instructing in Level C/D sims for a major carrier. During that time, I got to know a number of simulator technicians and can point you in their direction.

Every B-757/767 simulator at American in Dallas and United in Denver is configured exactly like aircraft in the fleet. I've also used the flight simulators at Northwest in MSP and Delta in Atlanta and believe they all similar in that respect.

The instrumentation, to my knowledge, is interchangeable. To get the necessary FAA certification of each individual simulator and each flight simulator is certified by serial number, the sim has to be tested and perform to very exact tolerances replicating the actual aircraft. This is one of the most expensive and time consuming parts of sim installation and the main reason that "moving" on to a new location is expensive. As to your second question, I'll defer to Cubdriver or Twin Wasp, who probably have the technical information you want.

G'Luck Mate