As part of an initiative designed to reduce the cost of flight simulation implementation, ten projectors from Norway’s projectiondesign have been supplied to Dutch-based technology manufacturer MPS for use in their training simulators.
MPS (Multi Pilot Simulations) is the brainchild of the experienced aviation industry solution provider Dick Verburg. Realising that no up-to-date, cost-effective FSTD (Flight Simulation Training Device) was available, he decided to design and build one himself.
Now, the standard MPS FSTD comes with a high-end RSI Raster xT image generator and a direct projection screen with a 200-degree horizontal field of view, while a more advanced version offers a collimated mirror display for enhanced realism.
Four FSTDs are installed at EPST (European Pilot Selection & Training, Verburg’s original company). One MPS FSTD as well as another FSTD refurbished by MPS have now been installed at EPST’s headquarters in Utrecht – one based on a Boeing B737-800W design and using three projectiondesign F22 WQXGA projectors, and a second based on the same cockpit but with three F12 WUXGA projectors. In addition, there are an Airbus A320 which employs three F22 WUXGA projectors, and a fourth simulator that is used as a procedural trainer which uses a single projectiondesign F22 WUXGA projector.
“When you are designing a flight simulator, you have to have absolute accuracy in everything you do and everything you use,” said Verburg. “For example, our ‘cockpits’ are dimensionally identical to the real thing down to the last millimetre, and even our oxygen masks are the same as you would find in a real plane.”
“To get an image that is realistic enough to match this authenticity,” he continued, “we turned to projectiondesign because of their reputation for colour accuracy, high brightness and contrast ratio, and their ability to supply us with sets of projectors that are calibrated and colour-matched at the factory. We have not been disappointed and are looking forward to supplying more FSTDs with projectiondesign hardware in the future.”
