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Thursday, January 24, 2002

By Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Rain is beating on the windshield and thunder claps as a novice pilot fights turbulence and approaches an airport runway, mishandling the controls during descent. The cockpit pitches upwards and shudders as the engine stalls.

	Mark Limbach, in the cockpit of a flight simulator, is vice president of marketing for Fidelity Flight Simulation. He talks with the firm's executive vice president, Geoff Barefoot, and its computer systems manager, Michael Sotirake. (Tony Tye/Post-Gazette)

When the inevitable crash comes a few seconds later, the event is marked only by the sudden appearance of a bent propeller on a video screen.

The student walked away unharmed, thankful that the experience was a simulated rather than real flight.

The simulation, complete with the motion, sounds and visual experience of piloting a small plane, took place not at an airport but in a North Side warehouse that is the home office and manufacturing quarters for Fidelity Flight Systems.

Fidelity, a young Pittsburgh company founded and run by pilots, is betting its future on the development of relatively inexpensive flight simulators that can be used for pilot training in the small aircraft industry.

The company cleared a significant hurdle toward that goal recently when the Federal Aviation Administration certified its Motus flight simulator as an accepted training device for student pilots.

With FAA certification, flight students can use the Motus to accumulate flight hours toward achieving primary and advanced pilot flight certificates instead of doing all of the required hours in an actual airplane.

"It's our contention that the simulator is a far better place to do that training than an airplane," said Mark Limbach, vice president of marketing. "It's more efficient, and it's safer for many operations."

With a base price of about $150,000, the Motus simulator is significantly less expensive than the simulators used by major airlines to train their pilots. Those large hydraulically operated, full-featured machines can cost up to $15 million or more.

The FAA subjected the company to intense scrutiny. Fidelity President Graham Hodgetts said the resulting certification, initially limited to a machine sold to a flight school in Colorado, was the "first ever" given by the FAA to a full-motion simulator in the Motus price range. He expects similar certifications to follow in other regions of the country.

The machines are manufactured on the top floor of an industrial building on Spring Garden Avenue that is part of a complex owned by Kasunick Welding & Fabricating. The shop's owner, Ken Kasunick, is an investor in Fidelity Flight and a weekend charter pilot. His participation meant that Fidelity had a machine shop at its disposal.

The company is marketing the machines primarily to privately owned flight schools that train pilots for general aviation, a broad term that encompasses most flying except airlines, charter operations and the military.

"It works well for us," said Curt Boyll, head technician at Windsong Aviation, the Denver-area flight training school where the Motus received FAA certification. "It's competitive for what it does and for what it costs. They're more in line with the economies of light planes."

Windsong students can accumulate 20 hours of flight time toward an instrument rating on the Motus for less expense than renting a Cessna 172 with an instructor, Boyll said.

The simulator can be used when bad weather prohibits actual flying. Students also can squeeze in more practice approaches and other maneuvers faster and for less money than in an airplane. Risky maneuvers can be tested without fear of a catastrophic crash.

"It could be a real commercial success, and bring a level of sophistication to flight schools," said Rich Johnson, vice president of the Harrisburg Jet Center, which owns one of Fidelity's early simulators. "It definitely benefits the student."

Fidelity sees opportunity in the facts that commercial aviation is steadily growing, pilots in the baby-boom generation are retiring and the military -- the traditional training ground for commercial pilots -- is churning out fewer pilots.

The safety record in general aviation is worse than that in airlines when compared on the basis of hours flown. Fidelity executives believe their system can help narrow the gap if it's widely used by the flight-training industry.

"General aviation, in my opinion, has an awful accident rate, much worse than commercial aviation," said Geoffrey Barefoot, a former Navy pilot who is an investor in Fidelity Flight and a vice president of the company. "This is ideal for bringing pilots up to speed, getting them safe and keeping them safe."

The business idea started at church, the interdenominational Christ Church in Grove Farm, Ohio Township, where Hodgetts, a mechanical engineer, met Gary Van Drie, a check airman who works with large simulators at US Airways.

They got to talking about the need for an inexpensive simulator for training light airplane pilots that would have features of the big expensive machines but be based on a personal computer. They decided that, at least from the computer point of view, it could be done.

The bigger problem was tackling the mechanics of making the simulator pitch, roll, yaw, heave, surge and sway or otherwise move like an airplane. Their first attempt was adapted from the body of a Ford Explorer.

"It took us four years of trying, fiddling around," Hodgetts said. "Our first simulator, we sat in the back of that Ford Explorer with a monitor on our knees and a joy stick in our hands."

The end result is far from that old Explorer. The Motus 6-Series is an enclosed cockpit with two pilot seats that sits on a base with moving legs that are powered by electric motors. Inside, four video monitors are placed where the windshield would be, creating a 140-degree horizontal view for the pilot.

Using flight simulation software, the Motus can be programmed to provide student pilots with major topographical landmarks and reasonably accurate views of runways from most large and midsized airports around the world. A speaker system completes the experience with engine noise and weather sounds.

"When you immerse a pilot into a full-motion simulator that has the rain beating against the screen, lightning going off and air turbulence so that he's having difficulty holding his heading, you're loading the pilot up, and he's going to come out of the simulator feeling much more confident because he's been able to handle extreme situations," Barefoot said.

The Motus operates on software developed by Laminar Research of Columbia, S.C. Laminar is the maker of X-Plane, flight simulation software available on the retail market that can mimic a wide range of airplanes from Cessnas to corporate, commercial and military aircraft.

That adaptability is key to Fidelity's plans. The company eventually hopes to get FAA approval for a variety of aircraft models whose operating features can be simulated by the Motus.

"By providing more realistic flight simulation and superior graphic displays at a lower cost, we can improve flight safety for a broader market," Limbach said. "This is what the Motus is all about."