Originally Posted by
BrandonSoMD
Using flight-qualified software and hardware in a simulator can present some challenges, by the way. Aircraft FMC and navigation software generally doesn't like simulator freezes, resets, and repositions, which are common in training. If the FMC software doesn't provide "hooks" for telling it to play nice in a simulator, it can be necessary to simulate the software instead of implementing it directly. I've seen some pretty odd simulator behavior because the FMC didn't understand why it was suddenly 28,000 feet higher and 400 miles away from its last known position.
Generally you are spot on here, except some considerable work has been done to support the use of aircraft code directly within flight simulators - particularly with the adoption of ARINC standard 610 (currently at RevC) "GUIDANCE FOR DESIGN OF AIRCRAFT EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE FOR USE IN TRAINING DEVICES"
The latest commercial simulators for 'new' aircraft all use the aircraft binaries - this is for multiple reasons including accuracy (but I also suspect protection of IP rights is high on the list, as is being able to charge $8 million for a data package from Boeing or Airbus, but that's a different discussion).
- GY