I remember visiting the Bucc simulator at Laarbruch. What sticks in my mind was that parts would occasionally detach themselves from the model and fall onto the floor. The poor pilot, however, saw this as a building hurling past from L-R or R-L !!! Quite a distraction.
I worked on the Tornado GR1 flight simulator and, as it was conceived to be an “all weather aircraft” it had no visual system at all – just a hood over the canopy filled with fluorescent tubes whose brightness could be changed to simulate various types of weather.
Later I worked on the Nimrod simulator (back end) and regularly visited Kinloss and St Morgan to see the “front end”. I can’t remember what was used for a visual system for low level but “in the cruise” the cameras switched to show, essentially, a rotating plate with “cotton wool” stuck to it to represent clouds. All very amateurish but it seemed to work.
In the early days of connecting the Nimrod back end to the front end, we didn’t get the clock synchronisation quite right and after a short simulated flight the TACNAV and RADAR reported a new target straight ahead, same level and moving slowly away from us. Turned out to be the front end which was flying slightly faster than the back end was
