A Preliminary Investigation of Achievable Motion Cueing in Ground-Based Flight Simulators for Upset Recovery Maneuvers

Using ground-based flight simulators for upset recovery training is appealing due to significant cost saving and safety enhancement. However, difficulty in obtaining acceptable simulation cueing, i.e., motion cues due to large amplitude of airplane’s response, or lack of them, i.e., using fixed-base simulator, poses a question if positive transfer-of-training can be achieved on the ground providing aerodynamics database is improved to correctly address simulated airplane’s response in abnormal flight conditions. This is a preliminary analysis to see if any motion related issues can be identified based on existing experience and known system constraints. Two mild upset and recovery maneuvers were analyzed based on different motion parameters to examine typical motion cueing fidelity issues in ground-based flight simulators.