"Cloud Flyer" : Moving Cockpit

[xpelekis]

What do you think ?...
I may say that I always wished to have something like this. Makes my imagination go wild...







The developers webpage : http://www.cloud-flyer.com/cloud-flyer.html

[Naismith]

The folks I know of who (well 2 people) bought his earlier models rate it very highly, one of them is a former US Army Helicopter pilot.

[MarkH]

I would definitely love to try this, but a few 'buts' for me. First, it opposes the trend towards bigger screens unless you accept a static display, which may be an acceptable compromise. I am thinking particularly of projector setups like the Icarus Avenger but also of my present three-screen setup. (From the publicity pics, I would say the screens are mounted too far away anyway.) Likewise for hardware controls - it would probably not be possible to mount my current cockpit panels on the machine so they would have to be static too. Next up, I'm not clear what happens when you take your hand off the joystick, so for example it isn't clear whether you could fly on autopilot. And obviously you can't use a yoke as the joystick is an integral part of the mechanism. Oh and some people think TrackIR gives them motion sickness already - just try it with this!

But I would still love to have a go at flying something like the Realair Scout in weather with this...

[heywooood]

maybe ok for tube liners and other non aerobatic fliers...but until it can loop and roll I cant say it blows my skirt up.

...question...what does it do if you roll inverted? lol

[SH427]

My guess is that it shakes excessively until you get to an attitude ist able to simulate again

[falcon409]

maybe ok for tube liners and other non aerobatic fliers...but until it can loop and roll I cant say it blows my skirt up.
...question...what does it do if you roll inverted? lol

I thought it was a worthy design but I sure wouldn't pay 3 Grand for it. It has very little movement compared to the actual visuals in the sim and as someone else mentioned, the placement of the screen is too far out in front. If you watch the guy using it he forces himself forward to get it to drop nose-down the way he wants it to and exaggerates his movements left, right, up and down to force the rig to mimic the sim. If you've flown in a fighter or aerobatic aircraft you know that having your lap belt and shoulder harness snug during erratic maneuvers or aerobatics is essential to minimize movement and keep you from getting disoriented. . .this guy is all over the place trying to get it to move in sync with what he sees on the screen. Also, I can't imagine using this in conjunction with TrackIR. . .talk about disoriented, lol.

He should be commended for his design, keeping the cost within reach of more folks than a professional simulator and it certainly has potential, but I just see a lot of problems with it also.

[MarkH]

...question...what does it do if you roll inverted? lol

Another question - what would you expect it to do? And why? The attitude of the machine has little or anything to do with the attitude of the aircraft. As far as I can tell this is about motion cueing and the cues exactly mimic the control inputs.

[TARPSBird]

It's a very nice rig if you have 3 grand in your petty cash shoebox. My imagination is just as vivid now as it was 60+ years ago and I can put myself overhead Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in a F4F, or overhead NAS Miramar in a F-14, with just the flight sim to set the stage. Don't need any moving seat or 3-D goggles. If you want to go the full-realism route then don't forget to put on your nasty sweat-stained flight suit every time you boot up your sim.

[Naismith]

Here is the guy I mentioned above
This is an older model of the device.

[Naismith]

Another example

[vortex]

I can't understand how a real-world helicopter pilot would rate it highly without any movement in yaw.

[MarkH]

If you watch the guy using it he forces himself forward to get it to drop nose-down the way he wants it to and exaggerates his movements left, right, up and down to force the rig to mimic the sim

Actually I don't think he is doing that. The design of this machine is a very old one (originally Ken Hill's Joyrider, later Doc Holloway's DreamFlyer) and uses a finely-balanced inherently unstable (high-CoG) pilot seat that is perturbed by the joystick inputs. The pitch and roll motions are them amplified by the weight of the cockpit+pilot. The result is (reportedly - I have not tried one) a very progressive stick action, which is considerably more realistic then a typical sprung joystick, and inertial cueing of pitch and roll movements. The pilot emphatically does not deliberately throw his weight around. The DreamFlyer publicity material is self-contradictory on this point, but it notes that the cockpit motion 'reacts to the actions of the control stick in realtime'. The original Joyrider design notes are clear about the mechanism, as are the detailed plans (which I have). That said, the fore and aft stick motion in the CloudFlyer video seems quite exaggerated and the pilot does appear to have to lean forward to get full-forward stick! Maybe that's a deliberate design feature to make the stick response work better.

BTW, the helicopter video posted above shows an interesting setup, which is the cockpit-mounted monitor for instruments and a static display (could be projectors!) for the outside view. It occurs to me you could also mount a TrackIR on the cockpit (or your head) and reverse the roll axis, in which case the external display would roll with the cockpit motion! Now there's an idea - Icarus Avenger and CloudFlyer!

So many experiments, so little money

[heywooood]

Another question - what would you expect it to do? And why? The attitude of the machine has little or anything to do with the attitude of the aircraft. As far as I can tell this is about motion cueing and the cues exactly mimic the control inputs.

I come in peace - that said - is that chair worth the price of admission? and how hard is it to climb in and out of that framework once its all wired up with joystick, throttle, speakers, pedals, monitor etc...
I get it that people want to increase the sensation or the feel of flying, but there's a difference between immersion and getting soaked