Prototype Feasibility Demonstration of Virtual Environment Flight Training Authoring System

This proposal is made to seek $100,000 of Federal funding assistance under the ARPA Defense Technology Conversion, Reinvestment, and Transition Assistance initiative to produce a plan to develop and test the first set of FAA approved low cost/high quality flight simulators. These simulators will be developed with the prototype of a software authoring tool called VRASAS will be used to develop virtual interface flight training systems that general aviation, commercial and military pilots can use to reduce the time and cost to learn and maintain IFR flight skill proficiency. The virtual environment will immerse the trainee in an experience that sounds, feels, and flies like a real aircraft, for a friction of the cost that other simulation systems are able to create. The state-of-the-art virtual environment technology will wrap the cockpit and outside terrain completely around the pilot. The $100,000 in Phase I funding will be used by the partners to formalize the design and specifications of the prototype VRSAS tool. Flight training in a virtual environment flight training system based on VRSAS will represent a turn-key solution to military, commercial and general aviation needs for a low-cost, high fidelity flight training device. VRASAS' ability to instantly re-configure from a fixed gear general aviation training aircraft to that of a Boeing B 727 will make it an invaluable military and industrial training tool. A simple software change using VRSAS, will allow users to re-configure the instrument panel, the aircraft's performance parameters, of the geographic location which the aircraft is flying over.