MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—From a viewing spot in a high bay room at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, I peer through a glass window at a cab that simulates the cockpit of a commercial aircraft. The 70-ton base of the Vertical Motion Simulator (VMS) moves the cab up and down like an amusement park ride.

“Are you guys thinking about flying?” Scott Reardon, the VMS facility manager, asks me and my co-worker Megan Geuss casually, as if we do this kind of thing every day.

There is only one answer to that question. Of course. We want to fly.

We are drilled on safety procedures and warnings before we enter the cockpit (“If you throw up, you have to clean it up yourself because it’s biohazardous”). Then, we strap on our seat belts, and my pilot, simulation engineer Nick Riccobono, and I slip on headsets. Megan takes the back seat after asking if one needs experience to fly the cab. It’s a good thing the answer is no, because we’re both unsure how this thing will work. We’re journalists, neither of us has been a pilot.

But I have played a lot of Mario Kart. How different can it be? Even Riccobono assures me it will be a little bit like a video game. The main controller I use goes up and down, although there is a reset button if my flight goes awry. The out-the-window graphics on the collimated display even looks like a video game, although the depth of field is more realistic because the images are reflected through a spherical mirror, allowing every passenger in the cab to see the simulated location at a distance.

This first virtual test is at San Francisco International Airport, although there is less fog than is often present at the airport (a condition that can be controlled). Getting off the ground is easy, and I feel that familiar pull of an aircraft ascending. Staying level in the air, on the other hand, is hard. When you drive a car, you don't have to worry about gravity. If you focus on the road in front of you, (and navigate around unruly drivers) you easily reach your destination. When you're flying a plane, real or simulated, you need to focus on several factors at once. Altitude, speed, direction, weather; it's a lot to think about. And, unlike driving, there is no road to keep you on your path. The navigation tools in the cockpit help, but you're floating in the air with clouds on every side. You're on your own. Maybe this is the reason professional pilots enjoy flying; there is a sense of freedom. But this is my first time. I don't feel free. I feel lost.

During my flight, I forget that I'm sitting in a motion simulator (which I think is the point). I also begin to think that NASA employees were overly cautious in asking me if I have experienced motion sickness. I don't feel the least bit queasy. I've experienced taxi rides up and down hills in San Francisco that were actually nausea-inducing. This just feels like I'm sitting in a very fancy virtual reality game.

Initially, I attempt to land on the runway, because in my mind the simulation is a video game with an end goal. But my co-pilot tells me to pull up so I can keep the simulation going longer. The simulator responds quickly to the change, although I have now lost speed and it's a slow and heavy climb to the clouds again. After a few minutes, the simulation is turned off and we unbuckle our seatbelts. No one barfed, no one died, we didn’t drop anything, and, most importantly, we didn’t break any NASA equipment. A successful flight. We're totally ready for another.

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss



Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Take offs and landings

The cab we sat in is one of five in the facility that can be used by researchers to simulate different types of aircraft, from fighter jets to helicopters to the Space Shuttle Orbiter. Two catenaries, which attach to the carriage on which the cab sits on the VMS, provide the cab with hydronic fluid. The catenaries look like long tracks dangling in the high bay facility, and they bend and move with the cab.

The VMS has six-degree-of-freedom capabilities but cannot travel in one direction continuously. It's used primarily for research, versus pilot training. Overall, the VMS is just one simulator at NASA Ames that is designed to help researchers and pilots save money and improve aircraft safety. There’s also FutureFlight Central and the Crew-Vehicle Systems Research Facility. And all three aviation simulation labs at Ames can be combined to create one large sim that integrates the perspective of the pilots and a crew working an air traffic control tower, watching the pilots take off and land in real-time.

Ames is located about 40 miles south of San Francisco on a campus that is quite expansive. We take cars to visit each facility that is part of Ames’ SimLabs, passing impressive structures and wind tunnels along the way. Besides air transportation, Ames also focuses on areas like robotics, space biology, and entry systems for space vehicles. Hopefully, we’ll get to check out the campus’ other facilities someday, but our tour focused on flight simulations.

During our tour, we stop at FutureFlight Central, where researchers can test out various scenarios at real airports in a facility that simulates the operations in a traffic control tower. When we visited, the facility’s 12 screens were set to Los Angeles International Airport. 3D models of aircraft took off and landed around us.

Airports and other customers can come in here, order up a simulation with certain variables such a specific type of plane or weather condition, and then see the scenario play out in real-time. NASA builds the scenario from historical airport data and then adds the requested elements. They can build hypothetical scenarios set in the near future or even create scenarios unlikely to happen—we saw simulated snow fall at LAX during our visit.

Girish Chachad, an outreach manager for the SimLabs and our guide on the tour, told Ars that customers who want to do research at the facility don’t have to think about the logistics behind a simulation. Once a simulation is developed, a customer receives a turnkey system.

“They don’t have to worry about how we start up things,” he says. “It’s like renting a car. It's ready to go.”

Project development can take several months. First, the graphics are developed. Everything is customizable, from the layout of the airport, to building heights, to the runways' widths. Once the location is built, the requested traffic scenario is tested. During an experiment, as many as 40 people are staffed in the two-story facility. Up to 20 pseudo pilots sit downstairs and fly the planes in the simulation. The pilots are in constant communication with the controller during a simulation, and they can stop planes or prepare an emergency landing. Simulation data (numeric, audio, and video) is digitally collected throughout each experiment. At the end of the experiment,the research team discusses what went wrong or what needs to be changed.

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss



Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss



Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

Megan Geuss

And even though it’s an experiment, the environment makes it easy for the team to get in the mindset of working in a traffic control tower, where a stressful situation can happen quickly.

“It doesn’t take very much for things to not go great,” says NASA Ames flight simulation engineer Estela Hernandez Buchmann. “I’ve seen situations where everything is great one moment, and the next, the aircraft is too close to another aircraft. So you have to figure out the best way [to move] without affecting another aircraft.”

“I think it’s pretty stressful,” she adds.

The experiments can be applied to real airports. At SFO, a recurring issue is fog. Under normal conditions, the airport has about 56 operations per hour. But when heavy fog rolls in that number could be cut in half so that safety is not compromised. NASA looked at how to increase the number of operations per hour using the simulation facility at Ames.

Another project at the simulation facility focused on runway incursions, or incidents where an aircraft or other vehicle is not authorized to be on an airport runway. According to the crew at the simulation facility, the majority of incursions are caused by human error, and most incidents are caused by the pilots rather than traffic controllers. NASA studied possible causes for these incursions and discovered that stress was a main factor. During experiments, a pop-up box on the screen asked researchers to rate their workload.

The goal of all the projects done at FutureFlight Central is ultimately to study how to make airports more efficient and safer. Airports can use the data from an experiment to choose whether or not to go forward with a project; NASA’s job is to simply provide that data. And, of course, it's the Federal Aviation Administration that will ultimately make the laws.

Listing image by Megan Geuss