Simulating Helicopter Flight

 My first exposure to Simulators was 1969 in Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, where, as a new pilot trainee, I had just been introduced to the Canadair CT 114 "Tutor".  It was the Trudeau years and so the military wanted to save money any way they  could.  One of those ways was  to  schedule a percentage of our instructional time to emergency and  navigation  sessions in the Simulator.  Except for the checklist procedures, all the exercises were via the instruments. There was no reason to simulate what was happening outside.
Then in 2004, along comes Microsoft with real simulation for a helicopter but it's operated by computer keys. Ahh .... yes, Saitek produced pedals and a "computer games" cyclic, but the visual environment was a flat screen --- hardly realistic when training to do the real thing.

In the military world, the advent of  helicopter simulation really took the science to new heights, portraying a ground environment that responded as it would to the proper use of the helicopter controls or vice versa. The control pressures might be a little different from one machine to the next,  but the eye hand coordination necessary to  fly, was the same .

For the Mosquito then, we wondered just how we were going to affordably access this military style simulation technology and get the novice into the air well prepared ? Could we get the Microsoft 2004 program to function  inside a 180 degree four screen environment that showed the pilot the ground ? If yes, we could give the pilot all the eye hand coordination that he could handle at a relatively small expense, and....as a bonus, the absence of noise and danger would be welcome.  

Chris Stroesser, a Canadian computer technician, took on the project in 2006, and when it was  successfully completed in 2007,  Microsoft distanced themselves, withdrawing all warranty support.  Chris must have been working in uncharted territory .

No  matter -- today,  it's working flawlessly and it is  available for use when pilots want to simulate flying a helicopter in the most economical manner.