Hello all!
Are there any other forum members that are Simulator Technicians out there?! Or any members who have experienced certified sims?!
I am currently on an assignment supporting flight simulations in Japan.
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I have been with the Osprey program for the last three years. I was selected for a position in flight simulations with Bell Textron working alongside the JGSDF. Itâs been an awesome experience thus far.
My background photo is the first year anniversary design of JGSDF Osprey Operations. Weâve been flying and training for three years now and weâve had some cool designs come to fruition. When I get some time, I will share them here.
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Itâs a timely discussion I think. People like me who fly sort of suck all the air out of a roomâsomething pilots have done since that glider guy in France in the late 19th century (I am so done with googling today!) Professional sims are marvels in their own right, often more complicated, if not more expensive than the aircraft they replicate. The people who design and maintain them have highly technical jobs but are literally in the shadows. I mean literally! Often when one of our sims gets a hiccup, the instructor will pick up the phone and talk to a dude, unseen, two stories below. Weâll hit freeze, walk the plank, drink coffee, tell some pilot lies and come back 20 minutes later to a sim thatâs magically âfixed itselfâ!
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This is true of all of the ones I have trained in. Itâs still amazing to me, until I consider that the sim can be crashed more than once. 
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You will find no shortage of folks who regularly train in sims here. On the technical side of simulators, you need to get together with @komemiute
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Another thing to consider is that many simulators for popular aircraft types run nearly 24/7 with perhaps one or two slots per day set aside for maintenance. Considering that most of the âpilot-facingâ components are real aircraft parts such as yokes, throttle quadrants, gear levers and flap handles, this stuff gets worn out extremely quickly. Itâs an incredible durability test for these components, many of which are quite intricate.
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Iâd pull my hair out if we ran 24/7! You can only shadow dwell for so long a day! 100% agree with them being an excellent durability test platform for high usage components. Thatâs cool that there are quite a few folks out there in the forums even though it is a âsmallerâ community. Everyone I seem to run into is secret squirrel about what they do in their particular simâŠcould be a military side of the house thing.
Appreciate the kind words @smokinhole, we do our best to ensure that the aviators have quality sim time. Our pilots who rotate through here are very knowledgeable crews. They donât suck all of the air out of the room!
@WarPig, New crews in training found our Crash Override optionâŠno Bueno for the control loading system! We learned to sit back and record their joy flight shenaniganâs and get a good laugh! They get to crash, then reset the flight instead of bouncing around and trying to defy programmed physics!
Look forward to hearing what kind of sims everyone is involved in. Anyone out there that has flown in a Cobra or Little bird Sim?
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Oh hell yeah! A fellow Sim Tech!
I worked 15 years as a maintainer and shift-leader for the Italian Airforce on the ASTA Eurofighter simulator (Grosseto and Gioia del Colle), the Tornado one (Ghedi) and the M-346 (Galatina di Lecce).
Now I am, still as a civilian, employed as Integration Specialist under the German Armed forces to take care of a wider range of sim-related things. I cover a lot of the Helicopters sim and a few other side-quests.
All in all I have something like 5000 hours of simulated flight spread all over the years. The largest part certainly in the Eurofighter sim cockpit.
EDIT: Speaking of durability test! We had to babysit pilots a lot to avoid them smashing stuff with their boots, each and every time they had to get in/out.
Not that the were doing it on purpose just⊠yeah. I must have changes every item of the Eurofighter cockpit at least three times.
Nice to know you!
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Not specifically those, but I am accumulating hours in the CH-53, EC-135 and NH-90 sims, just to stay on the âeggbeatersâ side of things. 
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Isnât that a bit counter productiveâŠ? I mean, we only destroy stuff so you techies will get your overtime bonus.
Youâre welcome!
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Nice to meet you! My goal is to stay in the sim community as long as I can. I worked the last 20 years as a maintainer between Harriers, Kiowas and Blackhawks. Dabbled a bit in the JSF and Hornet worlds. Struck gold with the sim career change, all those avionics qualifications worked out! Whew! Eurofighter and Tornado! Worked with the RAF a few times a year while I was on the Harrier side. Theyâd bring their Tornados, Harriers and Typhoons out to China Lake when I was with VX-31. Fun times! Yep, we have a few items that love to be smashed on while climbing into the simâŠoh the joys. Iâm way behind the power curve of hours haha. Maybe a couple hundred learning the Osprey. A few hours in an Apache and CH-47 sim.
A CH-53 and Eurofighter sim would be a blast to check out! Looks like I may need to plan a trip to your neck of the woods!
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Look guys I know what you do is sensitive. But this is fascinating stuff. Out simtechs arenât super keen on walking pilots around the floor. Believe me, Iâve tried. So pictures or videos or stories are welcome. Some here might not be aware of the system of jacks supporting the platform. This is a sim website but we never talk about real sims! This is the chance (so long as it doesnât get you fired or jailed!)
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I spent 5 years as a tech for business aircraft and regional jets. Everything from AATDâs (seriously) to Level 6 FTDâs to Level C FFS.
This was supposed to be a CRJ700. Mostly Arduino based. I had to sit IN THE ROOM when it flew because it just constantly broke. Note the Cessna pedals and ONE FMS. (not to mention the 737 shell.
See those two trouble makers? I missed out on OSHKOSH because I had to replace them and rebind most of the flight deck. DCS has nothin on that week.
This is a Level C King Air I worked on. Formerly JAL. Was built in the early 90âs. If you look behind the drawbridge, Thereâs a control rack with cards bigger than modern laptops. The door behind it was the server ROOM. Thing ran on OS32. Note the pig pads under the hydraulic lines.
Hereâs a King Air FTD I worked on. Can we say CANBUS?
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Awesome stuff!
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I trained in a King Air B200 FTD that looked very similar. This was at SimCom Orlando back in the 2006/7 timeframe.
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I have never lived in Florida.
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I wasnât implying that it was the same sim⊠it just looks similar, as in a King Air cockpit surrounded by screens. It was actually pretty good as I remember, despite not having motion.
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Oh I see. My apologies. If the visuals were a little better, I would agree. It was a sweet flyer though. Thatâs one of the unspoken benefits of being a tech, doing fly-outs every day.
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LOLOL! Oh boy do I have stories⊠20 years of them. At least two interesting one per year.
Rigorously no pictures of anything I worked on- I mean I do have them but I cannot show them.
The main problem is that they all involve sensitive data or need first hand knowledge of the airframe⊠or both.
Letâs say I canât write them here- but if we ever do an âInternational Mudspike Meet & greetâ I could tell a couple of good ones around a beer. Provided nobody is recording, that is.
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