MSU’s newest flight simulator

With a final check of his instrument panel, Mississippi State aerospace engineering graduate student Zachary Doucet pulled back on the control stick lifting his aircraft into the air. Moments later, he was preparing to land. Doucet began to hear Mississippi State University engineering instructor Calvin Walker coaching him through the landing. Pitch it back … flare, flare, flare, Walker urged. The plane touched down safely. But, there was never a cause for worry even though Doucet isn’t a pilot because he was sitting at a desk running a computer virtual experience exercise of a new flight simulator recently installed in the aerospace engineering department of MSU’s Bagley College of Engineering. The simulator, called the Merlin MP 500-1 Academic Engineering Flight Simulator, was installed at MSU by the Sussex, England-based Merlin Flight Simulation Group. MSU is the second organization in the U.S. to have use of the simulator. University of Dayton is the other. It’s not a traditional flight simulator. Its purpose is to help engineers design aircraft and help them understand how variables affect an aircraft in flight. “Students can design their own aircraft and test it in improvised real-world conditions without the costs and risks involved with building an actual aircraft,” said Christopher Neal, managing director at Merlin. It lets students work with existing or theoretical data to see how aircraft perform, and then "lets them make changes as needed.” (Source: Mississippi State University 07/28/17)