Day 1

The lab that I am working in at the Ohio Aerospace Institute works with the simulation of running an airport. There are different computers that simulate how planes taxi to runways on the ground, simulate the approach of airlines from a radar display, and simulate the flight patterns of planes that are far away. One can control a virtual plane’s speed, direction, place in line for descent, as well as which runway it should take off from and how it should taxi to that runway. Today I learned how to operate the ground control simulator. People at CSC designed a virtual airport for training, from which I was able to launch virtual planes. Once I am proficient with using the different simulations, I will be able to help the other people in the lab with new simulations designed to test possible improvements that could be made to current air traffic control systems. Interesting things I learned today: CSC designed a virtual airport modeled after an American airstrip in Afghanistan so that air traffic controllers could be trained to operate the airstrip before they actually got to Afghanistan, where they would have had to learn the ins and outs of the airstrip while under fire. I also learned that the air traffic control simulator can be connected with a flight simulator, so someone could actually be piloting the virtual plane that you are instructing as it lands.