The aircraft simulator is a vital component of pilot training and competance monitoring. Every few months all commercial pilots spend a few hours in the "box" where they perform simulated flights while a simulator instructor* makes an engine fail here or a wheel drop off there to see how the crew copes.
The simulator affords tremendous opportunities to build experience through exposure to scenarios that are rare and dangerous on real aircraft. But, they lack realism. The cockpit is often a perfect replica, identical to the aircraft, xyz movement is used as a stand-in for real accelerative forces and the windows host much-improved computer- generated visuals. But, there's no provision for traffic sharing the same airspace.
So, how about we link simulators to a common electronic environment. Now a pilot undergoing training will be flying around in a sky populated with other pilots, just like the real world. It will be somewhat more intense however, since those pilots all seem to be having tremendously bad luck with engine failures at V1/wheels falling off. Better still, air traffic control could easily be handled by real air traffic controllers undergoing training.
The main problem is that there aren't so many pilots undergoing training at any one time. So, this world should include the upper echelon of amateur flight simulator enthusiasts. Of which there are quite a lot. This would be the ultimate level of MS flight simulator, once you've demonstrated competence**, you get to fly around in the company of professional pilots. This might be worth enough to the airlines that they'd be happy paying the "traffic pilots" a small fee.
Some issues would have to be ironed out, aircraft suddenly appearing/dissapearing would be fairly common, so adding automated continuation of flights would be preferable.
*specialist type of torturer **and use a sensible aircraft, JFK with 27 SR-71s on the taxiway isn't very likely.-- bs0u0155, Nov 12 2019 [+]
This kind-of happens already in that real ATC chatter can be fed to your cans, with the instructor(s) supplying the stuff meant for you ... "Golf Bravo Pappa, descend and maintain three thousand, course one niner five, traffic on your left, five miles, descending, detatched airbus tailfin, someone used their rudder pedals too much ..."
MMORPGs are Baked, but not seemingly for "serious" flight sim.
// torturer //
Pr. "misanthropic malevolent sadist".
// SR -71 //
Not as tricky, vicious and unforgiving as the U-2, by a long way.
// trianing //
Three somethings ... no, don't answer that. We'll ask the Intercalary.-- 8th of 7, Nov 12 2019 No good asking him. He spends all of October in the Turks and Caicos islands out of contact with the rest of the world.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 12 2019 //Not as tricky, vicious and unforgiving as the U-2, by a long way//
Doesn't tend to drip fuel all over the place though.-- bs0u0155, Nov 12 2019 JP-7 is only just "fuel" - it's only slightly more flammable than water. Anything that needs a bucket full of perborane to chivvy it into burning really isn't worth bothering with.
100LL AVGAS with a methanol/nitromethane top ... now, that's an aviation fuel for real men. Real men with stained underwear, yes, but real men nonetheless (even are they are whimpering and wanting a hug from their mummy. Hitting 200kts IAS in a microlight during your takeoff roll* will unnerve even the toughest pilot).
*Attempting to run a Honda 50cc 2-stroke scooter on unleaded fuel "improved" by the addition of a high proportion of nitromethane model car fuel has a similar sphincter -dilating quality, particularly when it becomes apparent that the engine is dieseling and the grip-mounted killswitch has no effect.-- 8th of 7, Nov 12 2019 I suspect the overarching problem is that when it is all said and done, you still know that you're in a flight-sim.
What should be done is the pilot trainee should be fed some kind of tranquilizer, and then wake up in the pilot's seat in an acted simulation in which they have to react to not knowing whether the situation is real or not.-- RayfordSteele, Nov 13 2019 As the trainee is approaching the simulator, a gurney could be trundling away with a well-swaddled "training failure"... "Yeah, kid, we make simulators to save on equipment. You still have to keep yourself alive in it."-- lurch, Nov 13 2019 //JP-7 is only just "fuel" - it's only slightly more flammable than water.//
Enough of it would turn the runway into a sort of tarmac slurry. That could qualify as a contaminated surface... or with a little marketing, could be sold as a high friction surface. High enough that some of the less powerful aircraft become just... craft.-- bs0u0155, Nov 13 2019 Presumably, with a little software patching, you could find yourself at 37,000ft being overtaken by a moustachioed Italian plumber.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Nov 13 2019 That's a high performance aircraft, plumbing in Italy pays well I see...-- bs0u0155, Nov 13 2019 Oh yes, there's a lira money to be made ...-- 8th of 7, Nov 13 2019 random, halfbakery