Rotor Disk & ‘OwnShip’ Shadows

In the professional simulation industry the aircraft that you are flying is called the ‘own ship’.  Today I added visualizations for our “own ship’s” rotor disk and fuselage shadow.  This adds immersion for the pilot.  The shadow also helps the pilot better judge their altitude above the ground without needing to reference the radar altimeter.

Testing a 3D Cockpit view

Today I’m testing the loading of a 3D cockpit model view via the common image generation interface (CIGI) protocol. I’ve also added sound to the helicopter. While we typically won’t operate with a 3D cockpit model because we have a physical cockpit this feature will come in handy when testing with VR for additional crew members (ie. crew chief, flight medic, etc.). It will also be handy for a smaller mobile version of the simulator that we can set up at expos.