OV-10 Bronco Association Museum Simulator Project

INTRODUCTION

The OV-10 Bronco Association

is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the history of the OV-10 Bronco and the Forward Air Controller (FAC) mission. The association is based at Meacham Field in Fort Worth, Texas, and has established a museum there. The museum's collection is growing rapidly and includes two recently purchased Broncos. In 2005 Dave Culp, a former USAF Bronco pilot, put together a PC-based flight simulation station for the museum, based on FlightGear.

FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION

The OV-10 simulator hardware consists of a standard PC with an AMD 2300+ CPU, 512 MB RAM, GeForce MX4000 video card, standard peripherals with speakers and a USB joystick. The monitor was supplied by the museum, which helped keep the shipping costs down.

The operating system is linux, Mandrake 10.1, with the latest nVidia video driver, the KDE desktop, and can be used as a workstation if need be.

The simulator software is a slightly modified version of FlightGear 0.9.8, optimized for use by the general public by simplifying some controls and adding automatic crash detection and reset. The simulation starts with the user OV-10 on the runway at Ramstein Airbase, Germany, with engines running. The user experience is enhanced with the addition of over forty Artificial Intelligence (AI) aircraft which fly in the vicinity of Ramstein. The types of AI aircraft used in the simulation were chosen to reflect the usual air traffic in southwest Germany circa 1980.

Below is a photo of some museum visitors flying the OV-10.

OV-10_Simulator

Below is a screen capture of the user OV-10 over the German terrain.

OV10-screen-001

Below is a screen capture of the user OV-10 in formation with an AI aircraft.

2ship

Here is a look at the types of AI aircraft that inhabit the simulation.

traffic

Future Plans

The obvious next step will be to build a replica OV-10 cockpit with functioning stick, rudder pedals, and power and condition levers, and to install a big-screen display!

Acknowledgments

The FlightGear community, who have built a wonderful open source simulator and have designed dozens of realistic models of aircraft.

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