I was a Lightning Sim Tech at Binbrook 73 to 77. I remember working on the visual system for about a year before it was mothballed. This was at the time the UK was having the power strikes. Facts about power consumption is correct.
Its design was a vertical rolling map - map speed was related to sim speed. Camera mounted at the bottom looking up the map. Map was solely for take off, approach and landing.
The picture from the camera was routed through to 3 projectors (Red, Green and Blue) fixed to the back of cockpit. The projectors ran at 50Kv. We had to use big earthing sticks before working on their set up..
The visual system was maintenance /set up intensive, to achieve 2/3 sorties before it needed recalibrating.
All in all, given its design and technology age (analogue computing using valve Operational Amplifers and servoes), it was a reasonable system
We did manage to simulate a bird strike using a pea shooter and a chicken from a childerns farm set - although its wing span came out at 45ft
Got my memory cells running now, gee it was nearly 40yrs ago - anybody on the forum who used the Binbrook box whilst I was there ?