Cross-Cockpit Collimated Displays for Flight Simulation

Current simulator cross-cockpit displays offering large field of view, multi-viewer (two or more), collimated displays are expensive and have a number of performance and viewing deficiencies such as irregular geometry, heavy weight, high cost and finally poor vergence and collimation. Some of these problems become apparent in a number of ways such as difficulties in maintenance setup caused by irregularities in the display and color drop off and sometimes even motion sickness and pilot headaches. The optical properties of present day systems work on the ‘assumption‘ that the mirror is perfectly spherical when we know that this is not the case. Working on this erroneous assumption,the shape and size of the back projection screen is calculated. When these two major components ( mirror and back projection screen) are brought together to form the complete optical system the anomalies in the curvature of the mirror become evident in the display by way of edge compression and other visual distortions. Poor system performance can have a detrimental impact on training as is termed ‘negative training’ as it destroys the ‘illusion’ that the training provider is attempting to generate by reminding the pilot that it is ‘only pretend’.