From The Philadelphia Inquirer
(http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/business/7239107.htm)

November 12, 2003

Combat moves, without danger

Environmental Tectonics, of Bucks County, is introducing a flight simulator with a feature that top pilots may embrace.

By Henry J. Holcomb
Inquirer Staff Writer

This morning, test pilot Glenn King will take the ceremonial first flight in a brand-new simulator that will, its maker promises, cut the cost of training combat pilots and save lives.

Flight simulators have been around since not long after the Wright Brothers first flew 100 years ago next month.

But this one, designed and built by Environmental Tectonics Corp., of Southampton, adds something that has not been possible before. It authentically replicates what wild combat maneuvers do to the pilot's body, said William Mitchell, chief executive officer of the Bucks County company.

The G-Fet II, as the new simulator is called, has not been evaluated by the U.S. military. But beginning today, and until this first unit is shipped to Asia early next year, Environmental Tectonics will urge top-gun pilots, who are often skeptical of simulated flight, to come take it for a spin.

Environmental Tectonics already serves virtually all the world's air forces with its pilot-training and aeromedical products. It also has used its understanding of how people perceive and respond to motion to create amusement rides such as Disney World's popular "Mission: Space" attraction.

The company, which Mitchell founded 34 years ago, could use the lift it hopes to get from G-Fet II. Its entertainment unit has suffered since 9/11, along with the industry it serves. The public company posted a net second-quarter loss of $622,000 on sales of $4.7 million, which were down from $11 million for the same period a year ago.

Like other flight simulators, this one mimics the sights, sounds, pitch, roll, yaw and heaves that come in response to pilots' commands. The big breakthrough is that G-Fet II includes real forces of gravity - called G's - of the wildest combat maneuvers.

That is important.

"In combat maneuvers, your arm can weigh four times what it usually does. You can have trouble reaching a button," said Environmental Tectonics' Ernest Lewis, a retired Navy captain who flew dive bombers in Vietnam.

"In G-Fet II, what the pilot sees and feels, and the G-forces that must be managed, precisely match real combat flight," Lewis said.

G-Fet II is purely for combat training. The G-forces that threaten consciousness in a fighter would take the wings off an airliner. "In that situation, loss of consciousness is the least of a pilot's worries," said Dick Leland, a program manager at Environmental Tectonics.

But, like athletic training, preparing for combat requires training both the conscious and subconscious mind, said Leland, a former Air Force B-52 pilot. The conscious mind must learn to process information and make decisions. The subconscious mind must be trained to instantly interpret and act on signals from many parts of the body.

Now that is done by flying a real aircraft - the cost of which can run as high as $70 million to buy and $10,000 an hour to fly, Leland said. In contrast, Environmental Tectonics' $15 million to $30 million simulator costs about $500 an hour to operate.

It can let a pilot make a mistake that would be fatal in flight, Leland said, and "then we can sit down and say, 'Let's figure out how you got yourself into that situation...' "

Environmental Tectonics has for years been one of the biggest manufacturers of centrifuges that teach pilots to avoid loss of consciousness caused by G-forces. For this next step, it has harnessed advances in computer science, airframe design, and precise control of the 6,000-horsepower electric motor that spins the machine that will be introduced today.

King, the Environmental Tectonics' test pilot, will fly the simulator in a gondola spinning around at the end of a long arm. In the last generation of the machine, the pilot just sat there and practiced surviving the G-forces.

In the new version, the pilot flies as if in combat. In today's flight, the missiles King evades and enemy aircraft he fights will be predesigned computer simulations.

But future battles often will be against real pilots in other simulators, even conventional simulators built by rival firms, at distant military bases. "Young pilots can learn from flying against the ace of the base," Lewis said, sitting on a desk in the control room overlooking G-Fet II.

The cockpits are plug-and-play modular units that can be switched in an hour or so. So pilots can be trained to fly F- 18s in the morning. A few hours later, the machine can be a British Hawk or Russian MiG-29.

There is virtually no limit to the number of simulators that can be linked. "We could have 30 or more in the same battle, so the pilots would have to think about midair collisions as well as missiles," Mitchell said.

Producing the G-Fet II brought out what Mitchell sees as the key strength of his 150-employee company. Its computer scientists, aeronautical, electrical and structural engineers, and craftspeople worked as a team. "At times our skilled craftsmen on the shop floor solved problems that had stumped the engineers," he said.

For example, most centrifuges have massive counterweights. But that would create inertia that would make the snappy maneuvers of combat flight impossible.

So the team had to figure out how to spin the gondola at breakneck speed with weights as light as an aircraft. They had to figure out how to precisely and instantaneously control an electric motor big enough to pull a railroad train.

They had to figure out how to maintain several hundred high- speed data streams between the control room and the rotating gondola, which is twisting, pitching and turning.

This first G-Fet II has been purchased by an Asian country, which Environmental Tectonics would not name. It is not surprising that the first order came from a small air force, Leland said. For them, losing one plane can be a huge reduction in their fleet.

Mitchell's team sees a potential market for 50 of the machines worldwide if they can convince combat pilots that, as Leland put it, "flying the G-Fet II is an authentic experience. Real enough to make a pilot sweat."