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The World's Most Dangerous Driving Simulator

Posted by Soulskill on from the welcome-to-the-carbon-monoxide-simulator-X-2 dept.

agent elevator writes: Lawrence Ulrich at IEEE Spectrum has an interview with the maker of a simulator for professional racers. The Motion Pro II from CXC Simulations costs racers $54,000 and up. It conveys amazingly fine sensations, including the feel of the car's tires wearing out or the car lightening as its fuel dwindles. It also has the kick to make you really feel a crash: "If you hit the wall in an Indy Car and don't take your hands off the wheel, you'll break your wrists. Our wheel is a one-to-one replication of that, but we don't turn it up that high. It's the first time we've been able to replicate racing forces so high that it introduces liability questions."

4 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. A rich kids' toy, nothing more. by rodrigoandrade · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sure, it's a damn fine simulator, but nothing that a top F1 team haven't used before.

    And $54,000? That's pocket change for someone disputing a FIA world championship.

  2. Wasn't there an Apache helicopter simulator... by swb · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...they had to turn down from 11 because trainees were actually getting hurt when it crashed? For some reason I remember broken teeth being part of the experience.

    I'm not sure why a simulator would ever want to bash people that hard. You'd think it'd be almost more jarring to have the simulation just stop completely -- lights go on, screen dark.

    1. Re:Wasn't there an Apache helicopter simulator... by Nidi62 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      My (5 story) building houses several commercial aviation sims, everything from MD-88s to 777s, and supposedly (I have only been here about 3 months) if you take them into a stall or crash it can shake the entire building. In fact my coworker that sits across from me jsut today paused for a second and said that it sounded like someone crashed a sim, and they are 2 floors below us.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    2. Re:Wasn't there an Apache helicopter simulator... by Guy+From+V · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Your post reminded me of the Comanche combat sim games, one of the first I remember that allowed players to actually "dogfight" head-to-head via it's own network. I got my first real CFS flight stick and weapons control setup just for them.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...