Defense Articles

In the bowels of a Fort Carson warehouse, dozens of soldiers were battling roadside bombs, hunting insurgents and driving tanks across Iraqi battlefields.

Just don’t tell them it’s all a video game.

“We don’t treat this like a game,” said Staff Sgt. Robert Pagan, who was leading his soldiers through the elaborate computer simulation that uses realistic interiors from M-1 tanks and M-2 Bradley Fighting Vehicles to allow whole companies of troops to hone battle skills. “For us, it’s real life.”

The system, including 30 simulators, cost the Army about $50 million, but soldiers and the civilians who manage the simulator training say it saves money and lives in the long run.

“Nothing beats going down range, but this is as close as it gets,” said Jim Kwasniewski, a retired soldier who now works in a civilian Army job overseeing the simulator program.

Training on real equipment is incredibly expensive, with one Government Accountability Office estimate pegging the operating cost of an M-1 Abrams at $181 per mile traveled.

The expense has forced the Army for decades to limit livefire training. Besides that, training has its own limitations: Live action can’t be stopped and doesn’t come with animated replays that illustrate battlefield mistakes.

So the Army packed what look like shipping containers at Fort Carson with real tank and Bradley interiors, sporting all the controls. Even the sounds of operation are replicated.

“The only thing they don’t have is the smell,” Kwasniewski said.

Computers and video screens bring in the outside world and connect the simulators across a common battlefield, so just over 100 soldiers can join in the same war game.

Staff Sgt. Gerard Rodriguez, who helped run a recent simulation, said crews can learn the tactics they’ll need in Iraq.

Everything from the precombat checks and radio procedures to gunnery are drilled, he said. The simulations also incorporate computer-generated aircraft and artillery fire.

Pfc. Lance Anderson said the biggest advantage to the simulators is that vehicle crews can learn to work as a team without the pressures of the battlefield.

“You get familiar with your crew,” he said. “You learn how they react.”

Anderson said that level of understanding can save lives by helping crews operate seamlessly in Iraq.

And, despite some soldiers’ protests that the multimilliondollar simulators are all work and no play, most soldiers get a kick out of them.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Spc. Daniel Huffman said.

Combat flight simulators have long been an industry mainstay. Most seem to have been optimized for excitement, with perhaps more attention paid to spectacular graphics than to absolute accuracy. There is, however, another segment of the flight– simulator market that may be perhaps less exciting but is even more demanding for its programmers and potentially more rewarding for its users. These are what I call the “serious” simulators. Unlike “dogfighting” games, these simulators actually teach the techniques used to fly real aircraft-from lowly trainers all the way up to the Boeing 747-400.

While many of these “serious simulators” offer impressive graphics, more attention has been paid to realism. Their aircraft function much more like their real counterparts, in sickness and in health (and many simulators can be user-programmed to simulate aircraft, systems or instrument “sicknesses” at realistically inopportune times). They simulate flying to and from real-world airports using real-world navigation aids; you won’t find the somewhat synthetic battlefields seen in the military sims. Planes fly through realistic weather, too; several simulators can be set up to periodically query the Internet and download the current weather for the locations in which they’re flying.

In the rest of this review, I’ll look at a representative sample of some of the successful desktop flight simulators. I couldn’t cover every product. If you’re interested in desktop flight simulations of any kind, check out sim sites such as www.avsim.com, www.fltsim.com, or www.microwings.com on the Web. Each site has a wealth of information on just about every sim on the market as well as links to many other product-specific sites.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 Professional Edition-Windows only

The latest Microsoft Flight Simulator (MFS2K) includes a number of aircraft, ranging from a Cessna 172 up through the Boeing 777 and even the Concorde-all with somewhat realistic-looking instrument panels. A complete series of interactive “how to fly” lessons, starting with your first flight and moving up to advanced instrument techniques, is presented by Rod Machado. These lessons are very well organized and include handy features such as the one that allows you to “black out” certain instruments to teach you partial– panel flying.

For instrument training, not only can you dial the weather down to or below minimums (or download actual forecasts from the Internet), but you can also program various instrument, radio and system failures. Realistic-looking worldwide instrument charts and approach plates are available from Jeppesen SimCharts service. An electronic map lets you see how well you’ve been navigating, and though there isn’t any vertical tracking, the various “instant replay” modes give you a pretty good idea of how well you’ve been holding altitude or tracking a glide slope. A large, attractive manual helps you to find your way around the various aircraft instrument panels and includes a modest selection of instrument charts (printed in a small, eye– straining size).

Users of MFS2K also benefit from the vast universe of add-ons available, including a variety of scenery areas, additional aircraft, preprogrammed flights and “adventures.” Some are commercial products; others are available on the Web (check http://www.microsoft.com/games/fs2 000/default.asp and the sites listed earlier) and come from the immense user community. Available at just about any computer store or mailorder outlet, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 is a great starting point from which to explore the worlds of both entertainment and serious flight simulation. (By the time you read this, Flight Simulator 2002 should be out, offering even more aircraft and features.)

Fly! Version II

Windows or Macintosh

Fly! Version II from Terminal Reality Inc. provides full instrument flight capabilities that include nav and comm radios as well as a very realistic AlliedSignal KLN-90 GPS. I wrote the 288-page manual for Version II, which is provided electronically. It provides more information than most manuals do on how to run the simulator and fly its airplanes by rote. It also offers background information on aeronautics theory and instrument– flying techniques.

The graphics are fabulous and include various exterior views of your aircraft and extremely accurate weather and sky depiction. Terrain is similarly detailed; if you’re flying in one of the areas in which TerraScene satellite imagery is used, it’s easy to pick out the block you live on. Instrument panels are totally realistic and are so detailed they don’t even fit on one monitor (you can pan seamlessly around with the mouse). Each switch, button, knob and control is not only depicted, but it’s also fully operational. Flight models are reasonably accurate, although aircraft performance seems to be based more on the fond hopes of plane manufacturers’ marketing literature than on the real world. In addition to an electronic “vector map” window, you can open another window that shows your position over an actual and familiar U.S. Sectional Aero Chart. This kind of graphics power comes at a price. The frame rates will probably suffer unless you run a fast processor (a 750MHz or better Pentium III, or the equivalent G3 or G4 on a Mac), some kind of Dual Overhead Balls graphics card with 64MB or more of video RAM, and 128MB or more of system RAM.

Combat flight simulators have long been an industry mainstay. Most seem to have been optimized for excitement, with perhaps more attention paid to spectacular graphics than to absolute accuracy. There is, however, another segment of the flight– simulator market that may be perhaps less exciting but is even more demanding for its programmers and potentially more rewarding for its users. These are what I call the “serious” simulators. Unlike “dogfighting” games, these simulators actually teach the techniques used to fly real aircraft-from lowly trainers all the way up to the Boeing 747-400.

While many of these “serious simulators” offer impressive graphics, more attention has been paid to realism. Their aircraft function much more like their real counterparts, in sickness and in health (and many simulators can be user-programmed to simulate aircraft, systems or instrument “sicknesses” at realistically inopportune times). They simulate flying to and from real-world airports using real-world navigation aids; you won’t find the somewhat synthetic battlefields seen in the military sims. Planes fly through realistic weather, too; several simulators can be set up to periodically query the Internet and download the current weather for the locations in which they’re flying.

In the rest of this review, I’ll look at a representative sample of some of the successful desktop flight simulators. I couldn’t cover every product. If you’re interested in desktop flight simulations of any kind, check out sim sites such as www.avsim.com, www.fltsim.com, or www.microwings.com on the Web. Each site has a wealth of information on just about every sim on the market as well as links to many other product-specific sites.

Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 Professional Edition-Windows only

The latest Microsoft Flight Simulator (MFS2K) includes a number of aircraft, ranging from a Cessna 172 up through the Boeing 777 and even the Concorde-all with somewhat realistic-looking instrument panels. A complete series of interactive “how to fly” lessons, starting with your first flight and moving up to advanced instrument techniques, is presented by Rod Machado. These lessons are very well organized and include handy features such as the one that allows you to “black out” certain instruments to teach you partial– panel flying.

For instrument training, not only can you dial the weather down to or below minimums (or download actual forecasts from the Internet), but you can also program various instrument, radio and system failures. Realistic-looking worldwide instrument charts and approach plates are available from Jeppesen SimCharts service. An electronic map lets you see how well you’ve been navigating, and though there isn’t any vertical tracking, the various “instant replay” modes give you a pretty good idea of how well you’ve been holding altitude or tracking a glide slope. A large, attractive manual helps you to find your way around the various aircraft instrument panels and includes a modest selection of instrument charts (printed in a small, eye– straining size).

Users of MFS2K also benefit from the vast universe of add-ons available, including a variety of scenery areas, additional aircraft, preprogrammed flights and “adventures.” Some are commercial products; others are available on the Web (check http://www.microsoft.com/games/fs2 000/default.asp and the sites listed earlier) and come from the immense user community. Available at just about any computer store or mailorder outlet, Microsoft Flight Simulator 2000 is a great starting point from which to explore the worlds of both entertainment and serious flight simulation. (By the time you read this, Flight Simulator 2002 should be out, offering even more aircraft and features.)

Fly! Version II

Windows or Macintosh

Fly! Version II from Terminal Reality Inc. provides full instrument flight capabilities that include nav and comm radios as well as a very realistic AlliedSignal KLN-90 GPS. I wrote the 288-page manual for Version II, which is provided electronically. It provides more information than most manuals do on how to run the simulator and fly its airplanes by rote. It also offers background information on aeronautics theory and instrument– flying techniques.

The graphics are fabulous and include various exterior views of your aircraft and extremely accurate weather and sky depiction. Terrain is similarly detailed; if you’re flying in one of the areas in which TerraScene satellite imagery is used, it’s easy to pick out the block you live on. Instrument panels are totally realistic and are so detailed they don’t even fit on one monitor (you can pan seamlessly around with the mouse). Each switch, button, knob and control is not only depicted, but it’s also fully operational. Flight models are reasonably accurate, although aircraft performance seems to be based more on the fond hopes of plane manufacturers’ marketing literature than on the real world. In addition to an electronic “vector map” window, you can open another window that shows your position over an actual and familiar U.S. Sectional Aero Chart. This kind of graphics power comes at a price. The frame rates will probably suffer unless you run a fast processor (a 750MHz or better Pentium III, or the equivalent G3 or G4 on a Mac), some kind of Dual Overhead Balls graphics card with 64MB or more of video RAM, and 128MB or more of system RAM.

There is a delicious absurdity in being first among simulators. But Elaine Sturtevant, no epicure, would never describe herself that way. “The brutal truth of the work is that it is not copying,” she said in a statement prepared for a public dialogue last spring with art historian Michael Lobel at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, in connection with a survey of her work there. “The push and shove of the work is the leap from image to concept. The dynamic is that it throws out representation.” The vehemence and the knotty, epigrammatic style are Sturtevant trademarks. So is the casuistically hair-splitting attention to terminology; Lobel insisted on her behalf that the proper word for her practice is “repetition,” not copying, or appropriation, or anything else. Whatever term you use, the fact is that Sturtevant–she goes by one name only–was uncannily making replicas of other artists’ paintings and sculptures as early as 1964, when she created Warhol flowers almost contemporaneously with his originals, then went on, in short order, to Johns flags, Lichtenstein comics, Stella pinstripes and Duchamp readymades.

The flowers appeared in Sturtevant’s first solo show, in 1965 at the Bianchini Gallery in New York, and the story goes that Warhol, tickled by her attentiveness, loaned her the services of his silkscreen maker so she could extend the series. In fact when asked long afterward about how he made the flowers, he is said to have replied, “I don’t know. Ask Elaine.” (1) Such bonhomie lasted only a few years. “Originally most of her artistic peers supported her work,” reported curator Christian Leigh. “The climate began to shift when, in April 1967, she repeated The Store of Claes Oldenburg a few blocks from his own. By the mid-70s, what had at first been laughed at and appreciated for all the wrong reasons … quickly turned to anger, rage, mistrust, and misunderstanding on a collective scale.” (2) The feeling seems to have been mutual. Sturtevant’s withdrawal from the art world soon followed.

But with the widespread interest in simulation that arose in the 1980s, Sturtevant’s paintings and sculptures, not seen in a group show between 1967 and 1985, nor in a solo show from 1974 until 1986, began to circulate again. They were included in a 1985 exhibition called “The Art of Appropriation” at the Alternative Museum and, the following year, in “Production Re: Production,” curated by Bob Nickas for Gallery 345 in New York. Sturtevant’s work appeared in nearly a dozen more group exhibitions before the decade ended. In the ’80s, appropriation was generally considered, rather amnesiacally, as a novel expression of two newly paired forces: a bull market and an image glut. Of course Pop itself had been in part a response to essentially identical conditions, a booming economy and the proliferation of mass-media imagery. But for artists of the ’80s, recently translated French theories of a reality vitiated by consumer imagery were the source most frequently footnoted. Not that attention to domestic intellectual history was altogether lacking. The catalogue essay Thomas Crow wrote for the 1986 exhibition “Endgame” (at the Boston ICA), an important event–and text–for the then ascendant neo-appropriators, begins with reference to the pseudonymous critic Cheryl Bernstein. In the early ’70s, “Bernstein” had invented an artist named Hank Herron, a dead ringer for Sturtevant (whom neither “Bernstein” nor Crow acknowledged). “The death of the author as it has been postulated by Barthes and Foucault, the triumph of the simulacrum asserted by Baudrillard, are ideas that enjoy wide currency among younger artists and critics in the mid-eighties,” Crow wrote. “Despite her older theoretical terminology, however, these ideas are fully present in Cheryl Bernstein as well.” (3) And, he might have said, in Sturtevant.

In fact, in a 1996 survey of the art of the 1960s, Crow did cite Sturtevant, crediting her with lending support to Conceptualist challenges against the “seductive visual packaging of painting or sculpture” by reducing it to “pure redundancy.” He calls her work “a tautology that released a potent surplus of meaning into the world, immaterial but inseparable from visual means.” (4) Along similar lines, Sturtevant said in 2004, “My work is the immediacy of an apparent content being denied.” (5) But she is also sharply

observant of distinctions between her own motives and those of apparently similarly inclined artists of the ’80s: “The dynamic difference was that Sherrie Levine, leading the pack, brilliantly used the copy as a political strategy, whereas the force of my work lies in the premise that thought is power…. [O]ur pervasive cybernetic mode … plunks copyright into mythology, makes origins a romantic notion, and pushes creativity outside the self.” (6) Perversely but persuasively, Sturtevant casts appropriation as a form of transpersonal heroism.

NADS, America’s newest vehicle dynamics simulator, targets automaker and supplier use.

In movieland, if you build a baseball park built in the middle of an Iowa cornfield, they will come. But if you build one of the world’s most advanced vehicle dynamics simulators in Iowa City, Iowa, one that costs taxpayers $45 million, will automakers and suppliers come? That’s what the U.S. government and Iowa officials are hoping, roughly a year before the NADS, the National Advanced Driving Simulator, opens for business.

Whether the automotive industry doesn’t know about NADS, or doesn’t care about it, is still an open question. “It’s not so clear as to what their intentions are,” says Edward Haug, director of the NADS and Simulation Center at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. “We’re working with them to make sure they understand the capabilities of the device, with the hope they’ll come on board and be users. It’s a marketing issue.”

Asked if the Iowa location is a deterrent, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) NADS Program Manager Keith Brewer scoffs at the idea. “We all know they (automakers) ship cars all over the country. They ship them to Canada in the winter and the southwest in the summer.”

From the beginning, he says, the department has wanted the car companies to avail themselves of the simulator. “It will be open to anybody who is willing to come and pay a user fee,” Brewer says, “We’ve designed the NADS to have a production capacity of two shifts a day, five days a week. There’s going to be a lot of time available.”

The sprawling device, featuring an advanced 360-degree graphic dome capable of holding a 3,500 pound vehicle and moving it across the breadth of six lanes of traffic, is scheduled to be operational in April 2000. The building is expected to be completed this month. Assembly of the motion and computer systems are slated for November. Once open, NHTSA gets two-thirds of the simulator time for basic and applied highway safety research, and the University of Iowa has the remaining third, a portion of which can be fanned out to automakers.

According to the government, NADS will provide the capability for safely evaluating advanced vehicle communication, navigation, and control technologies which are now being developed as part of the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) program, in addition to offering the capability to study driver crash-avoidance behavior and carry out related accident reconstruction. And in terms of infrastructure, highway researchers will be able to evaluate alternative designs for intersections, entrances and exits, tunnel and bridge alignments, traffic control devices and highway signing without the expense of actual construction.

“NADS will be the ideal tool to explore these systems,” says August Burgett, chief of the NHTSA’s Light Vehicle Dynamics and Simulation Division

The University of Iowa was selected for the NADS site based on recommendations by the National Science Foundation, which helped NHTSA conduct a national competition among major transportation research universities for the potential site for the NADS. The University of Iowa agreed to put up $11.58 million for the NADS project, which includes design and construction of a $5.7 million building — something that top contender, the University of Michigan, was unwilling to do at the time of the competition.

TRW Systems Integration Group has a $34 million contract for final design and construction of the sprawling device at the university. TRW is responsible for systems engineering and integration and is also responsible for the operator station, researcher interface, overall simulator control and safety monitoring, performance assessment and data collection.

MTS Systems of Eden Prairie, Minn. is building the motion subsystem, while Evans & Sutherland of Salt Lake City, Utah, is responsible for the CGI and visual display systems, including fabrication of the dome.

Initially, four vehicles specially prepared by Dynamic Research, Inc. of Torrance, Calif., will be using the facility first. They will have special instrumentation and modifications for a secure tie-down to the baseplate. The first model up is a ‘96 Ford Taurus sedan. A Jeep Cherokee, a compact passenger car and a Freightliner truck tractor, will also be prepared for use in the simulator.

Iowa’s Haug says automotive Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies are major potential customers for the facility. But some big suppliers have the same idea. Last month Johnson Controls (JCI) launched a $3.5 million comfort engineering center in Plymouth, Mich. The 3,200-square-foot facility — staffed by 12 full-timers — features a driving simulator that the company claims replicates the sights, sounds, forces and vibrations that drivers and passengers experience under all possible road, traffic and weather conditions.

Kuntal Thakurta, manager of the JCI center, says it includes a six-axis, hydraulic shaker table, a vehicle cabin with two rows of seating from a small car, medium-sized car, or sport-utility vehicle, wrap-around, audio/video projection system that includes a rear-view screen, and a computer-controlled integration system.

The researchers examined the effects of infant simulators (computerized dolls designed to simulate normal infants) on 236 eighth-grade students. As part of their health and sex education curriculum, students had to provide care–24 hours a day, over several days–to dolls that cried when they “were hungry,” “needed a diaper change,” or “needed attention.” The dolls enabled teachers to evaluate the care given by students. Students kept daily charts and journals, and wrote essays about their experiences. One to two years later, the students were surveyed, along with 461 comparison students who did not have the infant simulator experience. The findings indicated that the doll experience had a significant impact on the students, especially the females. It helped them to learn about the challenges of infant care, and to think of the implications before engaging in sexual intercourse. The comparison group felt less knowledgeable about what it takes to care for an infant, and judged infant care as less time consumin g, difficult, and expensive than did those who had the infant simulator experience.

In this project, we examined the effects of infant simulators on eighth-grade students. An infant simulator is a computerized doll designed to simulate a normal infant. The dolls used in this project, Ready-Or-Not-Tots [R], are the size and weight of newborn infants. They are programmed, when activated, to cry, coo, and burp on one of three schedules. The dolls cry audibly and loudly when they “are hungry,” “need a diaper change,” “need attention,” or “need to burp.” “Care” is given by inserting one of four keys (attention, diaper, feed, and burp) into a slot in the back of the dolls. When a doll cries, the student must use the keys to determine the reason for the crying. Sensors on the dolls detect mishandling (dropping or hitting) and tampering with the controls.

Students keep records of the care they give by recording their actions on Student Response Sheets. These sheets can then be compared with templates that correspond to the schedules that are programmed into the dolls, making it possible to evaluate the care given.

The purpose of the project, which was an adjunct to the health and sex education curriculum, was to educate young adolescents about the responsibilities involved in caring for an infant, and the possible implications of engaging in sexual intercourse. The purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of the infant simulator experience on early adolescents. Guiding questions for the investigation included the following: How much did the experience impact the lives of students? What did students learn from, like, and dislike about the experience? Students were surveyed one to two years following the experience–what were their responses and how did their responses compare with those of students who did not have the experience?

METHOD

Subjects

As part of their health and sex education curriculum, 236 eighth-grade students (90 males and 146 females) in nine Catholic schools in a Midwestern city experienced the infant simulators. Approximately 95% of the students were from middle-class, white, Catholic families. The project was conducted for two consecutive years. One year after the second year of the project, 697 students (329 males and 368 females), 236 of whom had experienced the infant simulators, were surveyed regarding issues related to infant care, having children, and sexual behaviors.

Procedure

In each of the participating schools, the project director and the principals conducted meetings with staff members to familiarize them with the project, the dolls, and the procedures. Cooperation from staff members was requested in light of the disruptions bound to occur in classrooms, as well as other school settings, during the project. Workshops further explaining the project, its purposes, and procedures were also conducted for staff members. In addition, participating students were given introductory demonstrations in their classrooms.

In each school, all eighth-grade students were required to participate. Parents were informed of the project by letter, with the request that they take no part in the care of the dolls so that the students would have full responsibility for care. Signed agreement forms were obtained from the parents.

For the project, students were allowed to work in pairs and share responsibilities or to work alone as a “single parent.” Students were encouraged to supply normal baby needs (e.g., clothing, car seats, toys, strollers). The dolls, which were anatomically correct, gender diverse, and racially diverse, were distributed at random.

The 8-day, 24-hours-a-day project agenda for students began with a 24-hour period in which the students had the dolls in an inactivated state. The dolls were then activated for 72 hours, followed by a 24-hour period of inactivation, which was followed by 72 more hours of activation.

During doll activation, students were required to enter, on the Student Response Sheets, the type of care given by hour of the day. These sheets were compared, daily, with program templates, and students were given feedback regarding their care. Points were deducted from students’ grades for poor care. Decisions about poor care were made by the individual teachers. Students also kept daily, written journals in which they recorded their thoughts and feelings about the experiences they were having. Finally, students wrote summary essays in which they discussed what they learned, as well as what they liked and disliked about the experience. The summary essays provided one source of data for this report.

AIRLINE INDUSTRY INFORMATION-(C)1997-2004 M2 COMMUNICATIONS LTD

CAE Inc, a Canadian provider of simulation and modelling technologies, has announced that it will supply two full flight simulators for Emirates Airlines.

Emirates will reportedly buy a Boeing 777 and an Airbus A320 simulator, both of which are to be installed by spring 2006, for the Emirates-CAE Flight Training Centre.

The contract has been valued at CAD31m.

ON May 10, 2003, Vermont National Guard officials dedicated the Readiness and Regional Technology Center at Norwich University in Northfield, Vt.

The $8.8 million building has more than 88,000 square feet of space and houses the headquarters of the 86th Armored Brigade, weapon and command-post simulators, and the Air and Army Information Operations Schools.

The weapon simulators include an engagement skills trainer, JANUS system and an M1 Abrams Full-crew Interactive Skills Trainer.

The EST allows Soldiers to “fire” virtually all small arms, including the 9mm pistol and the 50-cal. machine gun. It provides individual marksmanship, collective squad-level training and “shoot-don’t shoot” scenarios.

Trainees “fight” against “enemy troops” that are projected on a screen. The system then records the number and type of rounds fired, and their accuracy.

The JANUS system provides battle-staff training for brigade, battalion, company and platoon operations. Soldiers receive immediate feedback on their tactical plans as they fight a virtual enemy. The simulator provides an almost infinite combination of virtual terrain, weather and digitized enemy forces.

The M1 Abrams trainer offers a wide range of scenarios. And it also tracks “fired” tank rounds and provides summaries of target hits for commanders and tank crews.

Additionally, a simulations network consisting of four M1 trainers, one M2 Bradley trainer and a Guard Unit Armory Device Fail-Crew Interactive Simulation Trainer, GUARDFIST-II, will be installed by mid-July.

GUARDFIST-II will provide simulated battlefield scenarios for the training of field artillery forward-observer tasks.–BG Eugene A. Sevi, chief of staff, Vermont Army National Guard

FIRST Great Western, Britain, has unveiled the first of three train driver simulators designed to both assess existing drivers and train new ones. The simulators are a full-size mock-up of the cab of a diesel high-speed train. They have been developed in conjunction with Bentley Systems, Primary Image, and EMD.

Real-time images of typical sections of the Great Western network are displayed on a 4 by 3.7m screen together with sound.

Corys Tess, France, has delivered two train driving simulators to Tunisian National Railways (SNCFT). One is a replica of a General Motors locomotive cab with a platform with 50 of freedom of movement. The other is a static half-cab simulator. The database covers 280km of track.