The virtual simulator is located at Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA, about 25 miles south of San Francisco. The facility can house as many as a dozen air traffic controllers, and it can represent the busiest U.S. airport towers in size and capability. This is part of SFO's continuing commitment to deploy the appropriate technology advances to address our rising air passenger levels as well as decrease delays. Airport officials say they chose the NASA simulator to help plan airport changes to increase both efficiency and total air traffic capacity. The simulator's artificial world changes in real time.
Scenes evolve, in the same manner that real-world changes occur.
In the computer world, airplanes not only come and go, but weather changes. Consoles are at each controller's location showing radar, weather maps, runway lights and touch-screen controls as well as other readouts. We can measure the impact of a change on the airport's capacity, and let the controllers try it first-hand, all before anything is built. After putting a new airport data set into the computers, FutureFlight researchers can switch to the new artificial airport in moments. Rearranging furniture in the simulator will take longer than activating a new computerized airport, NASA technicians noted.