Simviation Forums

So which software is used in the 737 simulators? I was watching airline and saw some people in one of these simulators and it LOOKED like FS2004 or a specially adapted version??

Some proprietary system. MSFS does not come close to the level of accuracy required for a full motion sim. A full motion sim based on MSFS in the level-d community would be lauphable at best.

Depends who makes the simulator - and normally I suspect it's their own visuals, tailored to the users requirements. For example most users may need less than a dozen airfield models. Airliner sims will be viewing the ground from 35000 ft. Military sims may only need a relatively small detailed area. As for flight models - as VB says, they are tailor made - remember these panels have to be fully functional and systems behave exactly as they would in the real aircraft, including such complex parts as flight engineers panels on older aircraft.

Here are a few of the manufacturers:

Thales

Frasca

CAE

There are others, but I've been up 20 hours (and crossed the atlantic during said hours!) so the brain isn't functioning too well!

interesting side note...

most airlines set their simulators to simulate night flights, not only is night IFR supposed to be more difficult, but by avoiding bright settings it "saves the visuals" and prolongs their service life.

another interesting fact that has nothing to do with the original question...

Southwest Airlines has rubber chickens hanging off of their simulators for "mojo".  I found that quite humorous.