HungaroControl has opened its Centre of Research, Development and Simulation
On 11/05/2011, in Simulator world, by steve
Central-Europe’s only simulation centre is operating under the aegis of HungaroControl from 10th of May in Budapest. The centre, equipped with state of the art technology, was opened by Mr. Pál Völner, Secretary of State responsible for infrastructure, Mr. Joe Sultana, COO of Directorate Network Management of EUROCONTROL (European Organization for the Safety of Air Navigation), and Mr. Kornél Szepessy, CEO of HungaroControl (Hungarian Air Navigation Services) in the presence of the leaders of Air Navigation Services in the region. The aim of the Centre of Research, Development and Simulation (CRDS) is to aid the regional cooperation and the establishment of the Single European Sky.
To make European air navigation more effective and competitive, the airspace presently segmented along the borders will be organized into functional airspace blocks within the Single European Sky implementation program. The integration requires unprecedented cooperation from the Air Navigation Service Providers and controllers and it makes changes necessary to numerous procedures and processes, also the shortening of the air navigation routes. HungaroControl’s innovation centre opened today enables the testing of newly developed theoretically secure processes and air traffic controller procedures before their actual usage.
“Hungary does its very best to enhance the establishment of the Single European Sky, and for the successful operation of the Central-European functional air space block, the treaty of which we signed last Thursday together with the countries of the region” – said Mr. Pál Völner Secretary of State responsible for infrastructure on the opening ceremony. “The Hungarian Air Navigation Service Provider invests great efforts in the advancement of the whole Central-European air navigation and the regional cooperation. A great example of this is the CRDS, an innovation centre which is open for all service providers” – added the Secretary of State.
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WorldFlight: driving virtual airspace to the max
On 02/11/2010, in Simulator world, by hoppie
On a sunny, crisp Sunday morning in Melbourne, Australia in the late 1990s, Matt Sheil raised the gear of his light twin and called Departure. With little traffic, he received clearance direct Sydney, his home town. Matt pointed the nose to the North-East, engaged the autopilot, and looked where he had put his newspaper.
Ten seconds later, he dropped the paper and stared at the GPS. What the hell was he doing? Sitting here in his own airplane, reading the newspaper, having himself transported home like cattle… why did he actually own an airplane and did not just book a seat on an airliner? The next morning, he sold off the aircraft, and decided that he would take ten years to build a credible, semi-professional simulator, to get the fun part of flying back into his life.
By the year 2000, the simulator actually was flyable and Matt decided to organise a small event to get some operation going. The aircraft simulated was a Boeing 747-400, so an around-the-world series of flights seemed the right way to go. A skeleton crew was assembled, and on November 5, 2000, Worldflight took to the skies, raising money for the Royal Flying Doctor’s Service.
John Davis, sim owner, and myself, software engineer, flying the Coventry 747-400
Over the years, Worldflight has grown to an annual event with a large share of followers. By now, up to nine full-size flight decks join the group, augmented by dozens of desktop simulators flown by people all over the world. All aircraft are linked into a virtual airspace provided by one of the virtual ATC networks, VATSIM. They can see each other out of the window, register all on TCAS when so equipped, and create a buzz of traffic that is quite a handful for the controllers.
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