Home-based Motion Simulator Emerges

Simulator technology with motion has developed rapidly in the past few decades, but until now the price of motion sims has been too expensive for most pilots to go out and buy.

That may change now that a company in Sun City Center, Florida, has developed a sim called Sky Fantasy. For $3,395, you can fly in the comfort and safety of your living room with full motion.

Rather than having complex systems with hydraulics or pneumatics, Sky Fantasy creates motion through a simple aluminum framework connected to a gimbaled chair that moves with input on the Saitec X-55 joystick controller. The framework is connected to a computer and a monitor that displays the outside environment and instrument panel. A “gull-wing mount” allows users to mount as many as three monitors.

The system also works with virtual-reality goggles and projectors.

The company says the simulator has a patented human interface system that delays the action of the control input for a fraction of a second to simulate even closer how an airplane reacts in flight. While we have not tested the simulator, the creator says the reality of the system “is unbelievable.”