Williams simulator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_B7rvj1GaAg
Notice the high tech cooling equipment (church fan) when the tub moves.
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They dont need that type of stuff to produce what they want. I don't think they are used to test handling but more as a tool to learn better racing lines on new tracks or with a different handling car. A understeering car and a oversteering car will need different lines.richard_leeds wrote:They look amazing and give the jolt and drama of the driving experience. However they can only ever generate 1g?
I wonder if the F1 guys have them linked to weights attached to the helmet like they use in the gym? They'd also need a rather hot fan to recreate the heat.... and a spray in your face for rain?
The concept of a "simulator" is to fool the body into believing it is in the artficially created situation. You don't have to generate one G, you just have to fool the body it is experiencing something, and the brain fills in the blanks.richard_leeds wrote:They look amazing and give the jolt and drama of the driving experience. However they can only ever generate 1g?
I wonder if the F1 guys have them linked to weights attached to the helmet like they use in the gym? They'd also need a rather hot fan to recreate the heat.... and a spray in your face for rain?
I have to agree. I also do a lot of sim racing on a static seat and ran half a season of endurance races. Doing 3+ hour stints for a total of 12 hours before a driver swap and yes you end up beat. But 15 minutes in a motion sim had me feeling like after 1 hour of my sim. Maybe it is the seating position or having to fight the change in loads. I also found it easier to drive the car when you can feel what it doesn with your body and not with your eyes and hands.The Thorn wrote:I am a seasoned sim-racer, and am working on some projects of modding in rFactor. If you ask me, it is possible to simulate new parts of a car in simulations like these, but everything has to be programmed correctly. And when they want to test a new aerodynamic part, it first has to be tested to get a good view on what it actually does to the car, before they can calculate it in a simulator.
But a simulator is not the real world. There are a lot of factors that just can't be simulated in a way as it is in the real world. Grip is different everywere, wind has a influence on aerodynamics like downforce and cooling, and tyres are behavind differently every time they hit a tiy object that is on the track, but wasn't there before in the past laps. You name it, and it is all just the randomness of the real world that just can't be really simulated.
That is why it is more used to get to know new tracks, or to get a first impression of how a F1 car drives.
Last year I had a few shots in that first motion simulator that is pictured in this topic. If you ask me, it makes a world of difference driving this, compaired to the stationary simulations most of the users drive.
I can drive a 3 houre race with little problems behind my own system, but in the motion-simulator it gets a lot worse. I could do a few laps, fully focussed (It was a hotlap challenge), before sweat broke free. I think I could do a 45 minutes race in it before I get exhausted. If you ask me, it is pretty impressive what these things can do.