B737 Max 8

[Bluestar]

I know this is a B744 place, but I thought I'd tell you a little bit about my sim experience last week. 

I spent almost 4 hours flying one of the new CAE $34 million B737 Max 8 sims.  The two things I noticed about the Max 8 are it is very powerful and it is very stable in manual flight. 

[simpilot-franz]

nice. do you know which simulation software runs on these machines ?

[Iadbound]

I recall that CAE simulators use CAE-proprietary software with airline-specific customization (I'm sure some other companies help with the development, but I don't which, etc.).  The full flight simulators ("FSS") must meet specific criteria to qualify as Level D simulators. Thus, they use purpose-built software.  https://www.cae.com/civil-aviation/aviation-simulation-equipment/training-equipment/full-flight-simulators/cae7000xr/ 

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

And most of the time this software stops right at the certification limit. You generally cannot do "interesting things" at all. Since nobody knows for sure what the data is, the thing just stops or blanks out. And any pilot will tell you that you still fly the sim or you fly the aircraft, they are not the same.

[b744erf]

I am curious about how the real sim interface each component. Real aircraft use many computers to derive each system individually, which is the way I think how they do the job. But is that possible they run a sim like PSX, which is the entire sim world with some plug-ins software and hardwares, like simstacks, to drive the OEM parts and PSX?

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Yes it is and it happens. There used to be a time that a large part of pro sims was indeed actual airplane equipment, but nowadays most of the systems are simulated by a monster duplicator. And it is not even made by the original manufacturer of the duplicated systems. The behaviour is carefully duplicated by a combo of document research and pilot input. Almost exactly what Hardy did, in the end.

This also means that the sim will have bugs that the airplane does not have, and that the airplane has bugs that the sim does not have.

A large carrier duplicated the MCDU interface and general behaviour of my SATCOM unit in software just by reading the document. They never even asked me. I therefore have no clue how good their simulator is.

A sim is a sim.
An airplane is an airplane.


Hoppie

[b744erf]

Thank you Hoppie. I am surprised but it is logical. Using software to replace real computers is much more flexible and save power.