Swedish Flight Simulator Adds G Forces

jonerik writes "According to this article in Aviation Week and Space Technology, Sweden's Dynamic Flight Simulator (DFS) is believed to be the first flight simulator which actually allows fighter pilots to experience G forces under simulated conditions. Designed and built by California-based Wyle Laboratories, the DFS is essentially a flight simulator capsule (in this case for Sweden's JAS 39 Gripen fighter) located at the end of a 30-foot centrifuge arm. 'We wanted to give pilots the ability to "fly" and interact with the environment rather than just be a passive [centrifuge] rider,' said Will Roberts, program manager for Wyle Laboratories' DFS programs. 'We've come a long way in being able to translate the six degrees-of-freedom you get in an aircraft into the three degrees-of-freedom that we can control in a centrifuge. It's not perfect, but we think it's pretty good. There's room for more research to make it even better.'"

Comments

Re:One quibble

[gantrep]

Wow, let me see if I can be even more pointlessly pedantic.

*ahem*

Wouldn't ACTUAL G-forces be the ones that are the result of the earth's pull and forces felt as a consequence of acceleration would be ARTIFICIAL G-Forces?

I don't care what the answer is either.

Simulation can't be accurate

[ebcdic]

If you produced the same G forces that a real pilot experienced, you would produce the same acceleration, and your simulator would soon be hundreds of miles away...