From: julian@riacs.edu (Julian E Gomez)
Newsgroups: rec.aviation
Subject: ELITE review #1 - JEG
Date: 12 Oct 90 03:25:39 GMT
Organization: RIACS, NASA Ames Research Center


ELITE Review, by Julian E Gomez

Copyright 1990 Julian E Gomez. All rights reserved.


INTRODUCTION

I recently had an opportunity to take a close look at ELITE (Electronic
IFR Training Environment) from Azuresoft. In a sentence: Finally! a
serious piece of flight training software!

The intent of ELITE is to improve scanning and help a pilot practice
procedures.  The target market is instrument rated pilots and airline
pilots. It comes in three versions at the moment: basic, high
performance, and jet. The basic package is an IFR Cessna 172, the high
performance package is a nicely equipped complex airplane, and the jet
package is an MD-80. I did not fly the latter because I already have
enough hours flying those.  :-)

ELITE runs on a Macintosh or IBM PC & compatible. Because I have no
familiarity with MSDOS products, my comments are limited to the
Macintosh version.


DESCRIPTION

The main display is a cockpit with a small visual. Control is
accomplished with a games stick or control wheel, along with optional
rudder pedals. The instrument layout is almost a standard "T", with the
DG having been replaced by an HSI. Power and autopilot controls are in
the lower right and are manipulated with the mouse. COM and NAV
controls are in the upper right. For the most part the various controls
are located next to the instrument display and are manipulated with the
mouse.

A status display page allows the user (or the instructor) to set
conditions and selectively fail instruments. In the forthcoming
Professional version this page will be on a second monitor, out of the
student's sight.

A track display page shows the course and glideslope tracking
performance, and is also used for coarse positioning of the aircraft. A
plan view displays runways, navaids, and airways. The airplane can be
moved anywhere to position it in the situation. The profile view below
shows the aircraft's altitude track compared with the glideslope
track.  The approach can be replayed on this screen.  Both of these
views can be zoomed to preselected levels to study the tracks in
details.


SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Mac IIfx, IIci, IIcx, or IIx, with color display and 2MB. Each package
includes the Universal Controls Interface which interfaces the various
sticks, control wheels, and rudder pedals to the Mac. The UCI contains
8 channels of 8 bit A/D conversion. One of the external controls is
required for aircraft control; the mouse is used only for setting
cockpit controls and working with the different displays.

ELITE is Quickdraw compatible; this fairly minor statement has great
implication in that it means that no special hardware is required to
run it. Any Macintosh color display board is adequate. Azuresoft has
done some preliminary tests with the various accelerated display boards
but does not have any definitive statements on performance improvement yet.


DISPLAY

There are three refresh rates to consider: simulation update,
instrument update, and visual update. The simulation update (also
called sampling rate or grain) is how often conditions are calculated
and is the basic determinant of how realistic the simulation is. Too
fine a grain results in a slow program, whereas too coarse a grain
results in incorrect approximation of the dynamics equations (an
example of aliasing.)

Instrument update refers to how often the instruments are redrawn.
ELITE refreshes only those instruments which are actually moving,
thereby saving a considerable amount of time. On the IIcx we were
using, the instrument update was about 10Hz.

The visual display is updated on a time available basis, i.e. the
simulation and instrument updates have priority use of the CPU. This
makes sense for an instrument flight trainer. In ELITE, visual display
is important only near the ground, since you are IMC once you get above
the ceiling. On the IIcx this also appeared to be about 10Hz.


REALISM

Aircraft

The Cessna 172 and the Aerospatiale Trinidad are modeled exactly. The
high performance module is comparable to a Mooney 201 or Cessna 210 or
Piper Arrow.  In the future other aircraft will be modeled, along with
a capability to customize the display to match a particular
configuration, e.g. your favorite airplane.

The airplane does not behave perfectly (or does, depending on the way
you look at it): manifold pressure decreases with altitude, and the ADF
needle doesn't point anywhere rock solid.

The autopilot is currently always two axis. The second axis can be
either pitch hold or altitude hold. In the future it will more closely
model a King autopilot.

Weather

The transition to visual is gradual, not sudden like in Microsoft
Flight Simulator. The bottoms can be ragged, so don't expect to remain
visual after first breaking out. In the jet version the tropopause
altitude can be set.

Environment

There isn't much visual environment to simulate. All that's needed is a
runway, and ELITE does a nice job with that. For an instrument trainer,
however, there are other details that contribute to the overall feel
which ELITE does well.  Among them: navaid audio disappears when the
navaid is out of range, and the placement of the localizer and
glideslope antennas actually makes a difference in instrument
indications.


ARCHITECTURE

Both the aircraft parameters and the database are modules and can be
changed very quickly. A number of large metropolitan airport areas are
available. Most of them have TCA's, but here that doesn't matter.


LOGGING

Azuresoft is working with the FAA to get ELITE approved for logging as
simulator time for instrument currency.


CONTACT

Azuresoft
800-654-2FLY
408-947-8594
408-947-8595 FAX
-- 

"We must grasp the bull by the tail, and look the matter squarely in the face!"

	Julian "a tribble took it" Gomez     julian@riacs.edu
	
From: julian@riacs.edu (Julian E Gomez)
Subject: ELITE Review - prices
Date: 17 Oct 90 00:19:38 GMT


It's been pointed out that I forgot to include this info in my review.

ELITE basic system for PC or MAC $749
High performance option $99
Jet MD80 option $699
Area libraries $50/per

They also have demos, but without the flight control and interface, you
can only run them on autopilot.
-- 

"We must grasp the bull by the tail, and look the matter squarely in the face!"

	Julian "a tribble took it" Gomez     julian@riacs.edu

-----------------


From ut-emx!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!agate!riacs!julian Fri Oct 12 10:17:04 CDT 1990