Amazing Technology Now Being Fielded Worldwide (Part II)
The point of the centrifuge is to increase the realism of flight
simulation. Or, as ETC puts it, to "continuous motion cueing and
sustained G cueing in real time flight." There has been a great
deal of to-controversy in the training and human factors worlds
over the last few years on the value of motion cueing. Some studies
indicate that it has little value. The difference may be one of
degree: traditional simulators can provide motion cueing that hints
at what the airplane can do, but they can't sustain acceleration
(G), they can't do negative G, they can't reverse from positive to
negative - all things an actual airplane can do. Even the
momentary, transient accelerations felt in an ordinary full-motion
simulator are stric