Apparatus providing a visual reference to assist in training a student operating a fixed-base aviation trainer in performing runway approaches and landings. The apparatus comprises a plurality of members movable to form cooperatively a two dimensional figure and means for projecting an outline of the figure on a vertically disposed display surface for viewing by the student. The visible outline conforms to a two dimensional projection on a vertical plane of the apparent shape of a runway as seen in perspective from an aircraft making a landing approach. The members are moved in accordance with simulated movement of the trainer so that the projected outline properly reflects apparent changes in the trainee's positional viewpoint with respect to the simulated runway.
A wrap-around display system for presenting out-the-window visual imagery in a flight simulator is disclosed. Eight identically pentagon-shaped translucent rear-projection screens are joined together at their edges to form a partial dodecahedron. Each video projector is mounted outside the partial dodecahedron to direct, through a mounted mirror-folded beam path, an appropriate simulator image to the rear of a pentagon screen. A simulator pilot views the simulated image from inside the partial dodecahedron. Also disclosed is an apparatus for switching eight video signals among six video channels by monitoring simulator head movement to switch video signals to the screen, or window, then being viewed. Further disclosed is an apparatus for providing geometrically correct separate images to two simulator crewmembers. Each field of an interlaced raster display is a display for a separate crewmember design eye-point. Two liquid crystal controlled glasses are worn one each by each crewmember. The glasses lens are separately switched on and off in synchronization with the two video fields so that each crewmember sees the geometrically correct view for his or her design eye-point.
