On Mon, 17 Nov 2003 22:51:23 GMT, "Dudley Henriques"
wrote:


The desktop sims, especially Microsoft's effort, are a wonder of software
engineering for the layman. I've worked with MS on their new simulator, and
it's a great program that offers a substantial look into our world for those
who might not ever get the chance to fly otherwise.

At Dryden MS Flight Simulator offered a substantial looking into the
Edwards world for those who might (and did) get the chance to fly. We
used the FS visuals for our computerized real-time interactive mapping
(RIM) and, later, our more extensive round-earth global RIM (GRIM).
We use this in the control room to display the ground track of the
research aircraft and to manage our use of the air space. We have all
the restricted areas, spin areas, PIRAs, landmarks, roads, runways,
etc, programmed into this model but it's really obvious that it
started as MS FS, particularly when you're running it in God's-eye
view.

I don't know the whole story of its origin, but I know we were looking
for some way to retire the big 30x30" plotters that we used for the
ground track of the research aircraft (from the FPS-16 tracking
radar). MS gave us the source code when we asked and we customized it
quite thoroughly. We can enter altitude restrictions into the
restricted areas, for example, And GRIM uses a round-earth model,
because we needed it for the SR-71.

The original computer was an SGI, but I don't know what we're using
now. Our system is unlikely to bear any real resemblance to the
current version of FS, have begun its divergence so long ago. We have
shared the code with a number of other flight organizations, including
Pax and LaRC.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer