| With their increasing complexity and sophistication, modern flight simulators have formed the core of commercial airline pilot training curricula. The fidelity of the simulation will have an effect on the quality of training provided, and in order to ensure its realism, all elements of a flight simulation must be modelled in such a way as to represent the actual system in as complete a manner as possible, including the presence of external disturbances due to the atmosphere.; This study investigates the degree of complexity required in the simulation of turbulence and thunderstorm downburst wind shear for flight simulation. A turbulence model is presented which contains all the correlations found in homogeneous isotropic turbulence. As part of the development of this turbulence model a method is introduced by which a time series may be modulated to alter its statistical properties while not affecting its spectral properties. Several simplifications and alternate models are considered. This report also presents further developments in the simulation of thunderstorm downbursts. A single ring vortex system, a triple ring vortex system, and Joint Airport Weather Studies (JAWS) data are implemented on the UTIAS B-747 Flight Simulator.; By means of pilot evaluations on this simulator, it was found that the inclusion of the isotropic turbulence correlations did not seem to affect the pilots' performance or aircraft response. Overall, spectral methods were favoured as a means of generating turbulence for flight simulation. Pilot evaluations of the downburst models showed that both single and triple ring vortex systems produced similar pilot reactions to the actual downbursts (JAWS data). It is suggested that the ring vortex models be expanded upon to include more than one downburst cell. |
