Amazing Technology Now Being Fielded Worldwide

By ANN Correspondent Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

There is a scene in every Bond movie where the star must collect his latest apparatus from Q, so clichéd a scene that Mike Myers sent it up lovingly in Wayne's World. On his way to the lab, the spy passes a number of other characters wringing out various outrageous and exotic devices.

Most of us will never take up the mantle of Sean Connery. The nearest we can get to starring in that scene is to visit the Environmental Tectonics Corporation's Somersworth, Pennsylvania (suburban Philadelphia) headquarters.

At ETC, things are happening. Robot Jeeps on hydraulic stands lurch and plunge, aircraft cockpits pitch and rotate in three axes, and - inside a cavernous, hangar-like building, guarded by signs warning everything from DANGER to NO CAMERAS BEYOND THIS POINT - a centrifuge spins around, accelerating and braking as a gimbaled pod on the end of its bifurcated arm rotates dizzily.

On November 12, 13 and 14 ETC "opened the kimono" to the press and public for an unprecedented look at the company's unique and innovative simulation products. First Flight Days referred not to the inescapable Wright Brothers for once, but to the first public demonstration "flight" of ETC's GFET-II centrifugal flight simulator - a machine that is bolted to the ground with battleship solidity, but that promises to be as revolutionary in its way as the Wright Flyer.

This machine is nothing less than the future of flight simulation.

All the Powers Align

The company's brass was all there, but so were the guys I was most interested in - the engineers that designed and built the remarkable G-FET-II simulation device. ETC's importance to the region, and to defense, was illustrated by the presence of several government representatives, including two House Members (and this was the day before the open-house for military and government customers). Pennsylvania's own Representative Jim Greenwood gave the opening address.

Stuck in Northeast Corridor ground traffic, I missed Jim Greenwood, but I didn't miss the engineers, or seeing the machinery run - and even trying some of it out.

Engineers are hilarious people, really

Standing next to some exotic machine they built, they'll admit, if pressed, "Yeah, I did the mechanical design on this part" or "Well, my software interfaces here, and -" and they always then say something like, "But you're not really interested in that." Yeah - right. Of course, once they find out you really are interested, then you get deluged with details.

We learned all about the GFET-II, but also took the time to check out what else is happening in Q's lab.

Meet Glenn King, and See Him Fly

The centrifugal simulator is new enough that the press can't fly it yet (I did get to fly just the simulator bit, with the arm and capsule stationary, but that misses the whole point of the GFET-II). For the centrifugal runs, the man in the capsule was ETC's test pilot Glenn King. Glenn is a meticulous pilot, all professionalism and procedure, but he also isn't averse to having fun. And his background was interesting, especially to all of us Walter Mittys out here.

So, what kind of guy becomes a simulator test pilot? A fighter jock? An ATP? Well… not exactly. Although most people who meet Glenn put him in that cubbyhole instantly - and not just because the senior ranks of ETC are thick with former military pilots. (Hey, the USA has gone to great extremes to select and train these aviators - a smart company takes advantage of that).

I've known Glenn for a couple of years, and always assumed he was a military pilot - he has that fighter-pilot swagger, the one that there's no formal class on but that everybody in the business seems to pick up, anyway. Maybe it's hereditary; his father was a military pilot. Anyway, I'm not the first one to be fooled: "I always thought he was a military pilot, too," Ernie Lewis, the company's director of simulations, a retired naval aviator with a good combat record, told me. "He would have fit right in in any of our ready rooms."

But Glenn is… a private pilot. Mind you, he's not just any Private Pilot, with 3,800 hours logged including significant time in almost any gravity-defying device, from parachutes (he is a USPA D-license jumper with over 12,000 jumps) to seaplanes, to ultralights. OK, so he didn't fly A-4 Scooters off the tiny deck of the USS Intrepid, but guys who did - like Ernie - respect and admire his piloting skills. That says something.

Glenn flew a tough demonstration profile several times during the day, sustaining up to 6.5 G for up to 6 seconds in the centrifugal simulator. And he was ready to go back and do it again, when the PR folks ran out of interested media, television crews (the demo made both Fox and NBC stations in the Philly market), Congressmen and other VIPs.

Glenn also has a mischievous sense of humor. If you have the good fortune to fly an ETC sim with him at the instructor console, you'll probably be faced with some absolutely jaw-dropping situation… but you'll not only learn what the sim can do, you'll be a better pilot for it.

ETC Simulation Devices

ETC has been making flight simulation devices for years, and they keep getting better and better. The GAT-II trainer, which we've flown and told you about before, is probably the most affordable GA full-motion simulator available today. ETC has also been making centrifuges for a while… for quite a while. To the point that most, maybe all, of the working centrifuges in the world today came from the Pennsylvania company.

So one day they started thinking about putting a flight simulator out at the end of a centrifuge.

To be continued...

FMI: www.etcusa.com