Chris Ryan is the owner of Ryan Aerospace – a company building virtual reality flight simulators that are changing the way pilots train.
How would you like to have been holding a steady hover and taking off and landing at 3 hours of helicopter flight time? Chris Ryan couldn’t afford helicopter lessons so he built himself a simulator to practice at home. His instructor was so impressed at his progress that he encouraged Chris to turn the simulator into a business.
From a humble PVC pipe contraption to now selling hundreds of virtual reality helicopter flight simulators into the military market, Chris Ryan (Ryan Aerospace) has taken a long road to get to where he is today.
Back in 2017, in episode 61, I spoke with Sérgio Costa from helisimmer.com where we covered a lot of information about virtual reality (VR) and how it applies to flight simulators.
There are almost 9000 members of Sérgio’s facebook group now and it is a very active place for people interested in helicopter simulators. To the point where he’s been able to influence the development of big name consumer sims to make them more helicopter friendly.
In this episode we revisit VR sims and see where they are up to. This gear has the potential to reduce in-aircraft training time by up to 40% – which given the cost of helicopters, is going to grab anyone’s attention.
US Army pilots training in virtual reality on the HELIMOD Mark III Helicopter simulators
Chris talks about what it takes to turn an idea into reality and some of the journey that this technology has taken to get to point where it is standard for pilots training at Fort Rucker.
Along with the simulators the goal is to develop a learning management system which will allow a student to move through sequences with a simulated instructor and features such as being able to see and follow the path for a demonstrated circuit.
We also cover:
sim sickness and how it affects some people
new technology that is coming out in mixed reality and hand tracking, and
what gear you should be looking for if you want to make your own home VR setup for training
Links from this week’s episode: Support the podcast on Patreon Ryan Aerospace – This is Chris’s company based on the Gold Coast, Australia and building simulators for customers around the world including the US Army and US Air Force.
Chris had his first helicopter ride while in the Australian Army Reserves. His Dad owned planes growing up so Chris was on the controls from an early age.
What was your biggest takeaway from this episode? Help yourself remember and share it with others by making a comment about it here below.
Sérgio Costa has 25 years of experience with PC based flight simulators and heads up the Helisimmer website team. Helping others and bring the simulation hobby to those that don’t know it yet is something he loves to devote time to as well.
Virtual reality hardware and software have crossed a threshold where their use in supporting helicopter training and currency/recency provides an amazing experience. In this episode we break down what you can expect and what you will need to get started.
Hopefully you will never look at computer helicopter flight simulators the same after listening to this podcast episode. Sérgio Costa is the editor and founder of Helisimmer.com which focuses on the fairly niche market of – not surprisingly – PC based helicopter flight simulation. On the site you can read reviews of a number of different flight sim software solutions and add-ons from a helicopter perspective.
Until recently I have spent very little attention or interest on PC helicopter flight sims. Mainly due to poor experiences in the past with flight models and how they flew but also just due to access to the real thing. I did use a home flight simulator during instrument flight training on fixed wing and rotary which certainly helped (the Cessna 172 matches a Blackhawk close enough in performance for instrument approaches).
Virtual reality headsets – model shown is a HTC Vive. The technology is now good enough to impact how aviation training is conducted.
Then 3 months ago I discovered where virtual reality(VR) technology had got to. My perception of PC flight simulator software for helicopter simulation has changed forever. Given the high cost of operating a helicopter, the cost of traditional fixed simulators and the increasing adoption of VR by consumers – my call is that all student helicopter pilots will be using VR during their training faster than most people will think.
It is amazing!!!
Sérgio and I chat about our experiences of virtual reality, unpack the technology that makes it up and go into the hardware and software you will need to install effectively a full sized Huey in your living room just by putting on a VR headset. Then when you are done with the Huey you can swap it for a Bell 206, R22, R44, B412, H125….. 🙂
Cadets and students trying out virtual reality helicopter sim (DCS:Huey) in Brisbane, Nov 2017
When researching headsets you will come across a number of types. The ones that we are talking about today are PC (Windows 10) powered rather than standalone headsets such as those that use a phone or Playstation. The power of modern PC graphics cards are required to provide the level of experience to make this viable. You will also find reference to ‘Mixed Reality’ headsets. Mixed Reality is the term that microsoft has created to group their virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies. AR references digital information overlayed on the outside world that you are looking at in much the same way that a HUD works.
The ‘best’ headset is subjective. If you are tempted to purchase in 2017/early 2018 then look at the HTC Vive (what Sérgio and I have), Oculus Rift which has been out for a while and is a proven product and the Samsung Odyssey. Each has different pros and cons – price, hand tracking resolution, screen brightness, field of view, resolution – but should all be suitable for flight sim needs and are the pick of the current offerings. A high resolution headset recently raised $4 million on Kickstarter but hasn’t been manufactured yet. Its final performance and successful delivery is still to be proven.
If you do not currently have a high performance gaming PC then you will unfortunately also need to factor that in your costs. And then the helicopter controls you need to purchase… Look it is not cheap but compared with the next best offerings in physical based simulators with multiple screens VR is a compelling business case.
Screenshot from the Dreamfoil AS350/H125 model in X-Plane 11
A good demonstration of the difference that head tracking provided by VR headsets makes to a helicopter flight sim experience
A pilot providing a detailed comparison of performance and flight model of DCS:Huey vs the real thing.
X-Plane and Robinson R66 model – more feedback and an opinion on the virtual reality experience of helicopter flight.
360 degree video example – wearing a VR headset allows you to look around inside this video tracked to the direction you are looking. This doesn’t have the 3D effect of software such as the flight sims but is still very immersive – putting you in the scene. Powerful tool for training or for capturing lessons and description of helicopter manoeuvres.
Sérgio demoing helicopter flight simulator (not virtual reality) and controls at a recent expo.
Chart showing relative performance of different graphics cards – virtual reality needs a beefy hardware setup especially when combined with flight sims.
Do you have a question about setup, hardware, software, training uses for virtual reality for helicopter simulation? Have feedback for others on how you found it or tips? Be part of the conversation by leaving a comment below.
