Abstract

Complicated navigation, costly inflight training, hazardous situations, accidents, and the inclination towards better quality of training have set the trend of novice pilot instructions to take place in flight simulators. One of the main components of such a flight simulator is the avionic system. In the Concordia Light Aircraft Simulator System, the avionic systems embody the radio stack and the associated navigational instruments. The contribution of this thesis is to document the enhancements of the Concordia flight simulator to function as a powerful academic tool, especially focusing on the design improvement and development of the radio stack system. The objective of this thesis is to upgrade the existing radio stack system. Essential for further developments, reverse engineering for the existing system is presented to understand its hardware configuration and operations. Instead of the common RS232 or parallel port, the multifunction data acquisition hardware made by National Instruments is used for the communication between the radio stack and the flight model computer. The VC++ and LabVIEW radio stack modules replace the existing assembly program to control and drive the upgraded radio stack system. A more sophisticated and versatile navigation model coded in VC++ is programmed for users to experience the radio navigation systems typically found on a general aviation aircraft.