- Flight Simulation Laboratory

These projects have been discontinued, but they are listed to serve as an inspiration for future projects, and to inform the public about the accomplishments of this lab.

IVANNA - 2006, 2007

Students of the Cal Poly Unmanned Aerial Systems Club launched the IVANNA Project, aimed at taking a picture from 100,000 feet and returning under autonomous rudder-only glider craft to the Projects original launch location.

The glider was supposed to reach 100,000 feet via attachment to a weather balloon, a proven method for delivering low weight payloads to high altitudes.

IVANNA made it to 32,522 feet before encountering a premature failure where a combination of events took place. Ultimately the glider detached from the balloon and, likely, due to the high forces of flight the glider's left wing and entire tail section departed the craft. Once entering the failure envelope of 6,000 feet AGL the parachute deployed (indicating the Failure Tracking System was working). The team recovered the glider via air-to-ground visual contact. The team had another launch in Fall 2007.

From Pheagle, and Beginnings of the RV

Pheagle Flight Simulator

The Pheagle flight simulator was the original flight simulator of the flight simulation lab. The Pheagle cab was donated to Cal Poly by NASA's Dryden Research Center in 1990. It had very little functionality when it arrived, and students wrote the code to make Pheagle into a successful simulator. Ultimately, it boasted at Non-linear Flight Model along with other technologies. It was state of the art at the time, but when the opportunity came up to create a new motion flight simulator, the project was considered complete. The simulator no longer resides at Cal Poly but was the foundation for the flight simulation lab.

The simulator used an electronically driven force feedback stick from an actual F-15 Eagle. It used magnets that could generate up to 50 pounds of force. For comparison, a Microsoft Force Feedback stick can barely manage 1 pound of force. It also had a full panel inside, with special electronic analog instruments. All of these instruments are fully operational, as well as roughly 20 digital switches. The display was a three projector setup, seen below. It was capable of simulating many landscapes and several aircraft, but was named Pheagle because it was particularly designed for the F-4 Phantom and the F-15 Eagle.

Pheagle Simulator Projector

The following two projects were completed by students in Senior Design class for the AIAA competition.
Members of the Flight Sim lab were part of these AIAA teams.