The installation of a new state-of-the-art simulator at RMIT University’s Bendigo Flight School will allow students to soar over virtual clouds during flight training.
According to a recent press release, the simulator, which is approved by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA), has high fidelity and realism that represent the best of industry standard.
State-of-the-art simulator
The simulator is similar to that being used by pilots in the United States Airforce and will be integrated and built into the syllabus to be used by all students.
Students will be spending around 30 training sessions in the simulator as part of their accreditation.
Furthermore, it will serve as remedial training, particularly for those having problems with their technique or handling.
They can get into the simulator to iron out the problems instead of getting into an expensive aeroplane.
In addition, the simulator is reconfigurable. As such, it will suit all the aircraft types that students use in their training and provides an immersive experience through large screens.
Providing standardised training
Feedback from pilots in rural areas and qualified pilots had described the simulator as have very realistic graphics and inputs into the controls.
The University has four of the simulators in total, two at its Point Cook site and one at the Melbourne City campus.
There is a standardised delivery of courses across all the sites. The equipment, simulator and even the course are all the same across all.
Industry in the region will also have access to the simulator for recency and currency training.
Bendigo’s RMIT Flight School opened in March to cater for the global pilot shortage and will welcome its first group of students from July 2019.
Alternative exploration
In other news, the University’s hidden history will now be revealed through an interactive app and audio-walk.
This will invite listeners to reimagine the City campus through Indigenous stories of land, river and sky.
Accessed via the TIMeR app, the narrated audio-walk will incite users to scan the geometric tags around the campus in order to hear the local Indigenous stories.
The stories reveal alternate cartographies of the landscape, inviting users to reimagine familiar sites.
Games researcher and project co-lead Dr Hugh Davies is hoping to expand the number of sites featured in the app soon.
They are aiming to include sites across Melbourne’s CBD, thereby offering a new way of exploring the city to both locals and visitors.
Learning about Indigenous history
Many Australians remain unfamiliar with Indigenous stories and histories, even those from the places where they actually live and work.
Hopefully, TIMeR will make this information accessible in a new and engaging way for anyone who is curious about the local Indigenous history.
The app looks at how traditional and alternate knowledges of space can be communicated through pervasive games.
