A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of flight controls, the effects of other aircraft systems, and how the aircraft reacts to external factors such as air density, turbulence, wind shear, cloud, precipitation, etc. Flight simulation is used for a variety of reasons, including flight training, the design and development of the aircraft itself, and research into aircraft characteristics and control handling qualities.
F/A-18 Hornet flight simulator aboard the USS Independence aircraft carrier
Link Trainer patent drawing, 1930
Military Personnel Using Link Trainer, Pepperell Manufacturing Co., 1943
Cockpit of a twinjet flight simulator
Antoinette (manufacturer)
Antoinette was a French manufacturer of light petrol engines. Antoinette also became a pioneer-era builder of aeroplanes before World War I, most notably the record-breaking monoplanes flown by Hubert Latham and René Labouchère. Based in Puteaux, the Antoinette concern was in operation between 1903 and 1912. The company operated a flying school at Chalons for which it built one of the earliest flight simulators.
Detail of Antoinette VII aircraft, showing Antoinette V8 engine
Antoinette V8 aircraft engine exhibited at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci", Milan.
Antoinette V8 aircraft engine exhibited at the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia "Leonardo da Vinci", Milan.
Ground training on an Antoinette simulator