United States Transportation Command

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MACDILL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. (USTCNS) --- Aircraft bounce, jiggle, dip and roll and, when they stall, they fall from the sky. A flight simulator that doesn't act the same way isn't much of a simulator and may not give pilots the seat-of-the-pants experience they need to feel they have mastered their aircraft.

To create the most realistic experience possible for pilots, the Boeing KC-135 simulator at the base Flight Sim Center has been upgraded to mimic the motion a plane experiences in flight.

Mark VanDerkarr, project officer at the Flight Sim Center, said, "The simulators will have the motion and movement they need to simulate real flight conditions." The simulator is one of 19 across the country being so equipped.

The process involves taking the sim off line, jacking up all 20,000-pounds of it and installing a range of hydraulic plumbing and actuators that will rock and roll the cockpit when actions by the pilot or flight conditions call for motion.

"It's about as close to the real thing as the pilots can experience without being in actual flight," said VanDerkarr.

The simulator, which was moved into a new building in November, has been a work in process, documented by a scrapbook of pictures and news clippings collected by the sim center's staff.

It was last refitted with wrap-around visuals to create a more realistic cockpit experience for a field of 180 degrees in front of them. It was a big advancement, said VanDerkarr but, without motion, the sim lacked the complete realism package.

"I have been tracking surveys and debriefings for years, and the one thing the pilots asked for the most is motion," said VanDerkarr.

At MacDill since 1996, VanDerkarr will be doing more surveys after the work is completed, asking pilots to rate the sim with motion, as opposed to without it.

Lt. Col. Kyle Smith, the chief trainer at the sim center, said one of the most substantial differences the motion equipment will make is the ability to simulate dangerous flight conditions that can't be done in flight.

"The biggest one is the approach to a stall," said Smith, who added that practicing stalls in KC-135s has not been allowed for some 10 years due to the danger of the maneuver.

The sim has been used in the past to practice stalls but, with the new motion equipment, when a pilot feels the plane slows and begins to drop as if it might crash, it feels like a stall and better prepares them to handle a real stall situation, he said.

Smith said the sim is "very, very close" to a plane in flight. It lacks some realism in the way it handles on the ground, he noted, but considers that a minor issue.

The cockpit inside the unit is an exact duplicate of a KC-135, VanDerkarr said, from the seats on up. Once strapped in, everything is in all the right places and the pilot feels as if he is at the helm of one of the big refueling tankers.

Now the work is done, the sim will undergo extensive testing and finally government certification, said VanDerkarr.

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KC-135 simulator rocks, rolls with new upgrade

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