![SSJ100 FFS 1 (9318513805)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/59/SSJ100_FFS_1_%289318513805%29.jpg)
Full flight simulator (FFS) is a term used by national (civil) aviation authorities (NAA) for a high technical level of
flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...
. Such authorities include the
Federal Aviation Administration
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...
(FAA) in the United States and the
European Aviation Safety Agency
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) with responsibility for civil aviation safety. It carries out certification, regulation and standardisation and also performs investigation and monitorin ...
(EASA).
There are currently four levels of full flight simulator, levels A through D, with level D being the highest standard and being eligible for zero flight time (ZFT) training of civil pilots when converting from one airliner type to another. In about 2012, these FFS levels will be changed as a result of work by an international working group chaired by the UK Royal Aeronautical Society Flight Simulation Group (RAeS FSG), which rationalised 27 previous categories of flight training device into 7 international ones. This work has been accepted by ICAO and is published under ICAO document 9625 Issue 3. The new Type 7 Full Flight Simulator will be the old Level D with enhancements in a number of areas including motion, visual and Communications/air traffic simulations.
A Level D/Type 7 simulator simulates all aircraft systems that are accessible from the flight deck and are critical to training. For instance, accurate force feedback for the pilot's flight controls is provided through a simulator system called "control loading", and other systems such as avionics, communications and "glass cockpit" displays are also simulated.
This standard of simulator is used both for initial and recurrent training for
commercial air transport
An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which ...
(CAT) aircraft. Initial training is for conversion to a new aircraft type, and recurrent training is that which all commercial pilots must carry out at regular intervals (such as every six months) in order to retain their qualification to fly "fare-paying passengers" in CAT aircraft, loosely "airliners".
A Level D/Type 7 FFS also provides motion feedback to the crew through a motion platform upon which the simulator cabin is mounted. The motion platform must produce accelerations in all of the
six degrees of freedom
Six degrees of freedom (6DOF) refers to the six mechanical degrees of freedom of movement of a rigid body in three-dimensional space. Specifically, the body is free to change position as forward/backward (surge), up/down (heave), left/right ...
(6-DoF) that can be experienced by a body that is free to move in space, using a principle called
acceleration onset cueing
Acceleration onset cueing is a term for the cueing principle used by a simulator motion platform.
Motion platforms used in "Level D" Full flight simulators (FFS) and equivalent military simulators have six jacks that can move the replica cock ...
, generally using the
Stewart platform
A Stewart platform is a type of parallel manipulator that has six prismatic actuators, commonly hydraulic jacks or electric linear actuators, attached in pairs to three positions on the platform's baseplate, crossing over to three mounting po ...
design.
Collimated cross-cockpit displays
![Collimation - diagram and real sim](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fb/Collimation_-_diagram_and_real_sim.jpg)
The display system that shows imagery of the out-the-window (OTW) world to the pilots, is generally designed so that the imagery appears at a distant focus. This is called a
collimated
A collimated beam of light or other electromagnetic radiation has parallel rays, and therefore will spread minimally as it propagates. A perfectly collimated light beam, with no divergence, would not disperse with distance. However, diffraction pr ...
display, a word derived from "co-linear". The reason is so that each of two pilots, sitting side by side, can see essentially the same OTW imagery without angular errors or distortions. If a simple projection screen were used instead of a collimated display, each pilot would see the OTW at different angles.
The error angle (parallax) for a simple, non-collimated projection can be estimated in the following manner:
, where
''l'' — lateral distance between the pilots,
''R'' — distance from the pilot's head to screen.
So at ''l'' =1.5 m and ''R'' =5 m angle
.
See also
{{Commons category, Full flight simulators
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Flight simulator
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...
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Acceleration onset cueing
Acceleration onset cueing is a term for the cueing principle used by a simulator motion platform.
Motion platforms used in "Level D" Full flight simulators (FFS) and equivalent military simulators have six jacks that can move the replica cock ...
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Latency (engineering)
Latency, from a general point of view, is a time delay between the cause and the effect of some physical change in the system being observed. Lag, as it is known in gaming circles, refers to the latency between the input to a simulation and t ...
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Stewart platform
A Stewart platform is a type of parallel manipulator that has six prismatic actuators, commonly hydraulic jacks or electric linear actuators, attached in pairs to three positions on the platform's baseplate, crossing over to three mounting po ...
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Collimation
A collimated beam of light or other electromagnetic radiation has parallel rays, and therefore will spread minimally as it propagates. A perfectly collimated light beam, with no divergence, would not disperse with distance. However, diffraction pr ...
Flight training