Please sign our guestbook. For additional information, e-mail John D.Micheletti, Southwest Research Institute. The goal of the AST was to reduce the requirement to use operational aircraft for load crew training and certification. Minimizing aircraft use for training reduces the chance of accidental aircraft damage and increases aircraft availability for the daily flying schedule. To train ground crews in postload checklist procedures, the AST contains a mockup of the aft crew-station operator panels.
Software simulates panel operation during the checklist procedure.
SwRI replaced the existing AST simulation software and postload checklists to provide concurrency with the Block C version of the aircraft operational flight software, and increased scenario development and monitoring capabilities. SwRI also has options to design and build two additional mini-ASTs and provide simulated panel hardware spares. As part of the previous Block C software upgrade, SwRI developed an instructor environment, a simulation authoring environment, and system diagnostics based on National Instrument's LabVIEW programming language. This flyer was originally published in November 2000.