A bigger sim
Today and tomorrow I'm at the AOPA Summit in Florida. Walking around the exhibit hall today offered me the chance to fly a Fresca simulator setup for a Cirrus SR22. This thing has a wraparound screen that probably covers 180 degrees of your forward view (so nearly total side-to-side coverage) and maybe 40 degrees up-and-down (so plenty). I kept my flight short, but just after takeoff I rolled over into a steep bank and felt a little disoriented. It was kind of cool, but something that I'd have to get used to as getting all that visual input with no seat-of-the-pants input was a touch strange. The graphics looked like MS Flight Sim, so I assume that is what was driving the view, and the avionics were near-real-life mockups mounted in a cockpit setup not too different from the real SR22. Very very cool. To end the flight I did something unique. I slowed down, reached up, and pulled the chute. The sim seemed to do a decent job simulating the event, and it was a bit of an e