Karen Walker/TAMPA
A US COMPANY HAS completed a low-cost simulator which it believes has applications for research, training and even for military mission-rehearsal, for which several such devices could be networked together.
Opinicus, based in Clearwater, Florida, expects to deliver its first Reconfigurable Research and Engineering Vehicle Simulator (RREVS), to Parks College of St Louis University, Illinois, this month where it will be used, by students of aerospace engineering.
The portable RREVS costs between $600,000 and $1.5 million, and is easily switched to simulate a helicopter, fighter, airliner, general-aviation aircraft, or a ground vehicle. Opinicus has manufactured and integrated all the simulator's hardware and software, adding a Ball visual system and an Iconix instructor station.
Opinicus was formed in 1988 to provide simulator-upgrade services and has graduated through increasingly complex contracts. Recently it completed major upgrades to full-flight simulators at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Miami, Florida, for the Boeing 737-300 and 767-200 and McDonnell Douglas DC-8. The company is also working with Lockheed Martin on the C-130J Hercules 2 programme.
The RREVS, however, marks the company's entry into simulator manufacturing, and the system has been shown to the US military. Opinicus now intends to build a second simulator to use as a demonstrator.
Source: Flight International
